The Congress’s victory in Karnataka Assembly polls did not provide the succour the UPA Government was expecting from it, thanks to Wednesday’s scathing observations from the Supreme Court over coalgate but Kerala’s Congress party, heading the nine-party ruling UDF, is determined to use it to defend itself against the attacks from the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF.
The victory in Karnataka against the BJP is also expected to embolden Kerala’s Congress in its efforts to deal with certain Hindu community outfits which had stood with the UDF for long and have now declared war on its Government in the context of a new BJP move to expand its support base following Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s Kerala visit on April 24.
Congress leaders in Kerala have already started claiming that the allegations of corruption and anti-people policies being leveled against the party and the coalition Government it is heading would in the context of the victory in Karnataka look like outbursts of political jealousy coming from the left which has lost its footing in all its strongholds.
They believe that the party’s victory in Karnataka will provide it at least with a breather just when the Congress and the UDF Government are facing serious charges like those in the case of the urgency it is showing to set up a Greenfield airport at Aranmula, Pathanamthitta by filling paddy fields and wet lands and a decision for a “private” drinking water project.
“We consider this as a gift to us from our party colleagues and people of Karnataka on the second anniversary of the UDF Government,” said a senior Congress leader close to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The Government headed by Chandy, surviving on a wafer-thin majority, had assumed office on May 18, 2011.
“The Opposition has announced its decision to observe the second anniversary (May 18) of the Government as Betrayal Day. But the people are sure to reject their agenda as the charges of corruption against the Congress in the national level have been proved meaningless by the outcome of the Karnataka polls,” he said.
“The CPI(M) is attacking the Chandy Government over imaginary charges of corruption against it. The Marxists should understand how the very party that has been attacking the Congress for alleged corruption has now fallen because of its own rampant corruption,” the Congress leader claimed.
The Congress in Kerala is refusing to agree with the theory that it would not have won in Karnataka had it not been for the corruption charges against the BJP. “In that case, we were not the only party to fight against the BJP. There was the Janata Dal(S). Then why did the people choose us and not themIJ” asked a close aide of Ramesh Chennithala, State Congress president.
However, the biggest opportunity the victory in Karnataka has brought to the Congress in Kerala, according to leaders, is that it would now get the chance to boldly deal with the NSS, outfit of Hindu upper caste Nairs, and SNDP Yogam, outfit of the Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, which have given strong indications of the decision to distance from the Congress.
Congress leaders are of the opinion that the NSS and SNDP had intensified their attack against the UDF, after standing by it for so long, in the post-Modi visit context. “But they should understand that no such strategy is going to bear fruit in Kerala. Modi did campaign in Karnataka but he could not salvage his party there,” said the Chennithala aide.