Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Kottayam on Wednesday will mark the informal start of preparations of the party-led UDF for the Kerala Assembly election due in May, but she may have to address a big dilemma during the visit: Whether the party and the front should consider abandoning their alleged policy of minority-appeasement or not.
This is expected to be one of the major issues the leaders of the constituents of the ruling coalition would want her to take up when they meet her in Kottayam. Top State Congress leaders also may take up this matter with her. Sonia had agreed for one-to-one meeting with leaders of allies and sources said that she might also meet top State Congress leaders.
The mighty ‘I’ group in Kerala’s Congress is arguing that pursuing the policy of appeasing minority communities and disregarding the majorities could be detrimental to the interests of the UDF and strong indications of this had come out in the recent civic election in which the front suffered a huge setback.
The ‘I’ group headed by Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala is likely to bring to Sonia’s attention its assessment that one of the reasons for the BJP’s growth in Kerala is the Congress’s pro-minorities policy. It will also argue that the prominence the minorities are getting in State administration has led to the distancing of majority communities from the party and the coalition.
However, the ‘A’ group of the Congress led by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and the allies supporting it may put forward a counter argument before Sonia Gandhi: That the principal reason for the setback the party and the front had suffered in the .local bodies election was the alienation of the minorities.
Muslim league, the second biggest UDF constituent and considered as a supporter of the ‘A’ group, is likely to tell the Congress president that her party’s failure to effectively resist the “threat” of the Sangh Pariwar had created concerns among the minorities and that the CPI(M) had cashed in on this in the local election.
“The situation is that no front partner is happy about the state of affairs in the Congress and that the group war in it is affecting the front as a whole,” said a group-neutral Congress leader. “No front constituent wants to take up the issue of the infighting in the Congress with Sonia but they are sure to air their concerns,” he said.
According to him, collation constituents are sore over the Congress’s inability to effectively counter the “threat” being posed by the BJP and the newly party of majority communities under the leadership of the SNDP Yogam of the Hindu lower caste Ezhavas. “They will want the Congress to formulate a strategy on issues like this,” he added.
The Congress president will be meeting leaders of each UDF constituent separately between on Wednesday which would give them enough time to present their cases clearly. The State Congress leadership will hold one-to-one meeting with the allies on Tuesday prior to their meetings with Sonia.
One of the most watched among Wednesday’s meetings will be the one between Sonia and KM Mani, chairman of the Kerala Congress (M), third biggest UDF constituent, who had resigned last month as Finance minister following the allegation that he had taken Rs 1 crore as bribe from the State’s bar owners.
Mani and his party have alleged that the UDF Government was being unfair with him as Excise Minister K Babu, loyalist of the Chief Minister, is still continuing in the Government despite the fact that he is facing the charge of taking Rs 10-crore bribe from the same bar owners. Observers say that the KC(M) is sure to take this issue up with Sonia Gandhi.