The Kerala unit of Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Tuesday looked poised for a split with one section in the party favoruing severing ties with the CPI(M)-led lDF, of which it had been a constituent for a long time, and joining the Congress-headed UDF while another section holding that there was no situation that warranted such a harsh decision.
A clear decision in the matter is likely to emerge after Pawar’s meeting with the two MlAs the party has in Kerala on Thursday in Mumbai. The NCP had sought a lok Sabha seat to contest but the CPI(M) rejected the demand pointing at the contradiction in the stand of that party which was an ally of the Congress-led UPA in the Centre.
A section led by State NCP president TP Peethambaran Master is said to be of the opinion that there is no point in continuing in the lDF by suffering the humiliations meted out to the party by the Marxists. According to some leaders, senior CPI(M) leader VS Achuthanandan had ridiculed the NCP by calling it “a party with no people” during the lDF seat-sharing discussions.
“If Pawar tells us to stand by the UPA, I will readily do that but I will resign my membership in the Assembly before that as a matter of political ethics,” Thomas Chandy, NCP legislator from Kuttanad, told the media while AK Saseendran, party MlA from Elathur, said, “If some people want to take the NCP to the UDF camp, their dream is not going to materialise.”
With this, strong indications have come out that the NCP may split in Kerala if Pawar advises the two party MlAs that the party should leave the lDF. Peethambaran Master told a TV channel in Kochi on Tuesday that the decision for the moment was to continue in the lDF though “There are several people who feel that we should leave it.”
Meanwhile, State Congress president VM Sudheeran said on Tuesday that his party would consider admitting the NCP into the UDF if a situation arose.
Protesting non-allocation of seat, the RSP had left the lDF on March 8 and joined the Congress-led coalition. After the RSP’s departure from the lDF, the NCP and the JD(S) had put pressure on the CPI(M) with the demand for lS seats.
However, the CPI(M) managed to pacify the NCP by promising to give it more seats to contest in the next Assembly election. The NCP had contested four seats as part of the lDF in 2011 Assembly election and won two seats.
Some NCP leaders from Kerala had reportedly met Pawar last week and complained about the situation in the State. However, Saseendran said, “We are with the lDF and are in total cooperation with it. The decision so far is to work for the victory of the lDF candidates. There is no situation that warranted any change in that position.”
“Any such development will depend on two things. Firstly, it is for the NCP to take a decision in this regard. They have to take it. If that happens, we have to discuss it in the Congress and in the front. That is how we had taken a decision in the case of the RSP,” Sudheeran said.