More than six weeks after its devastation in the Assembly election, cracks have started developing within Kerala’s Congress-led Opposition UDF with a major coalition constituent, the Kerala Congress (M), resorting to openly attacking the lead party and some of its powerful leaders who were allegedly responsible the front’s huge setback in the May 16 polls.
A crisis-like situation seems to have emerged within the UDF with KM Mani, chairman of the KC(M), third biggest front partner, openly complaining that the bar bribery case against him was part of a (Congress) bid to keep him fettered to the UDF and his party’s Youth Front reportedly complaining to the Congress high command about the leaders who were allegedly behind it.
Mani, Finance and law minister in the former UDF Cabinet headed by Congress’s Oommen Chandy, had resigned in November last following an adverse comment from the Kerala High Court in the case pertaining to the charge that he had taken
`1crore as bribe from the State’s bar owners for helping them in getting the licences renewed for their closed bars.
“Behind the bar bribery scandal was a move to keep me fettered to the UDF due to a suspicion that I might switch sides to the (CPI(M)-led) lDF… My party had found out whose move it was but we did not divulge it just because of our decency,” said 83-year-old Mani in a talk-show on a Malayalam television channel.
Immediately after the eruption of the bar bribery scam almost two years ago and the subsequent launch of a quick verification on the matter against Mani by the Vigilance which found that the charge was not totally unfounded, there were rumours that originated from within the KC(M) that a top UDF leader (read Chandy) was behind it.
“That was a time when rumours were rife that Mani might take his party to the left camp which might go to the extent of making him even the chief minister in order to topple the then Chandy government and to destabilise the UDF. Even Mani’s close aides at that time had spoken about this several times,” said a former KC(M) leader.
However, Chandy said the UDF’s style of functioning did not include keeping anyone trapped within it. He added that he had nothing more to say on the subject. Even now several KC(M) leaders are convinced that Chandy and some other Congress Ministers had been using the Vigilance against Mani to prevent him from going to the left by discrediting him.
Mani’s loyalists were also peeved about the fact that while the Vigilance during Chandy’s rule had no qualms in holding a proper probe against the KC(M) chief, there was no such move against then Excise minister K Babu of the Congress, a close confidant of Chandy, who was accused of taking `10-crore bribe from the bar owners.
The KC(M)’s Youth Front has alleged that Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and Adoor Prakash, respectively former Home and Vigilance minister and former Revenue minister of the Congress, were behind the allegations against Mani. According to the Youth Front leadership, Chandy’s role also has to be suspected.
According to observers, the threat that Mani may move away from the UDF is not yet over. If that happens, he may not go to the left camp now as it does not want him anymore after getting a huge majority in the Assembly in the May election but the question is whether he will take his party to the BJP-led NDA, they say.
“Anyone who knows Mani closely will agree that politics for him is a game of survival. The BJP is on a bid to broaden its base in Kerala with the 2019 lok Sabha election and 2021Kerala polls in mind. There is nothing wrong if it hopes that KC(M), a party backed by the Catholic Church, is holding nothing against it,” said a senior editor of a pro-Congress newspaper.
Observers do not find any reason to believe that Mani has any firm objection to getting into an understanding – if not an alliance – with the BJP. According to them, the only concerns of Mani, who believes that the KC(M) pockets are still intact, will be to safeguard the interests of the settler farmers and to convince the Church. VR Jayaraj n Kochi
More than six weeks after its devastation in the Assembly election, cracks have started developing within Kerala’s Congress-led Opposition UDF with a major coalition constituent, the Kerala Congress (M), resorting to openly attacking the lead party and some of its powerful leaders who were allegedly responsible the front’s huge setback in the May 16 polls.
A crisis-like situation seems to have emerged within the UDF with KM Mani, chairman of the KC(M), third biggest front partner, openly complaining that the bar bribery case against him was part of a (Congress) bid to keep him fettered to the UDF and his party’s Youth Front reportedly complaining to the Congress high command about the leaders who were allegedly behind it.
Mani, Finance and law minister in the former UDF Cabinet headed by Congress’s Oommen Chandy, had resigned in November last following an adverse comment from the Kerala High Court in the case pertaining to the charge that he had taken
`1crore as bribe from the State’s bar owners for helping them in getting the licences renewed for their closed bars.
“Behind the bar bribery scandal was a move to keep me fettered to the UDF due to a suspicion that I might switch sides to the (CPI(M)-led) lDF… My party had found out whose move it was but we did not divulge it just because of our decency,” said 83-year-old Mani in a talk-show on a Malayalam television channel.
Immediately after the eruption of the bar bribery scam almost two years ago and the subsequent launch of a quick verification on the matter against Mani by the Vigilance which found that the charge was not totally unfounded, there were rumours that originated from within the KC(M) that a top UDF leader (read Chandy) was behind it.
“That was a time when rumours were rife that Mani might take his party to the left camp which might go to the extent of making him even the chief minister in order to topple the then Chandy government and to destabilise the UDF. Even Mani’s close aides at that time had spoken about this several times,” said a former KC(M) leader.
However, Chandy said the UDF’s style of functioning did not include keeping anyone trapped within it. He added that he had nothing more to say on the subject. Even now several KC(M) leaders are convinced that Chandy and some other Congress Ministers had been using the Vigilance against Mani to prevent him from going to the left by discrediting him.
Mani’s loyalists were also peeved about the fact that while the Vigilance during Chandy’s rule had no qualms in holding a proper probe against the KC(M) chief, there was no such move against then Excise minister K Babu of the Congress, a close confidant of Chandy, who was accused of taking `10-crore bribe from the bar owners.
The KC(M)’s Youth Front has alleged that Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and Adoor Prakash, respectively former Home and Vigilance minister and former Revenue minister of the Congress, were behind the allegations against Mani. According to the Youth Front leadership, Chandy’s role also has to be suspected.
According to observers, the threat that Mani may move away from the UDF is not yet over. If that happens, he may not go to the left camp now as it does not want him anymore after getting a huge majority in the Assembly in the May election but the question is whether he will take his party to the BJP-led NDA, they say.
“Anyone who knows Mani closely will agree that politics for him is a game of survival. The BJP is on a bid to broaden its base in Kerala with the 2019 lok Sabha election and 2021Kerala polls in mind. There is nothing wrong if it hopes that KC(M), a party backed by the Catholic Church, is holding nothing against it,” said a senior editor of a pro-Congress newspaper.
Observers do not find any reason to believe that Mani has any firm objection to getting into an understanding – if not an alliance – with the BJP. According to them, the only concerns of Mani, who believes that the KC(M) pockets are still intact, will be to safeguard the interests of the settler farmers and to convince the Church.