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Karunakaran
wants a ‘few changes’: Azad
Sanjiv Sinha
New Delhi,
April 14: THE crisis triggered off in the Congress party in
Kerala by K. Karunakaran’s dramatic resignation from the party’s
working committee is likely to end on a positive note soon. Senior
party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Motilal Vora — the two emissaries
sent by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to mollify the sulking Kerala
strongman — returned here last night, giving enough indications
that their mission had been ‘‘successful’’.
A confident-looking
Azad told mediapersons soon after his arrival in Delhi that the
‘‘crisis in the state unit had blown over’’
and that their talks with Karunakaran had been positive. Asserting
that a final solution to the pending issues would emerge very soon,
he added that Karunakaran had asked for some ‘‘changes
and adjustments’’ in the Assembly seats given to his faction
and that the central leadership would consider his demands sympathetically.
Perhaps of greater significance was Azad’s assertion that the
octogenarian leader did not either broach the demand for an Assembly
ticket for his daughter Padmaja, or the state PCC chief’s job
for his son Muraleedharan, during the two-hour meeting with Sonia’s
emissaries.
The non-implementation
of both these demands was said to be one of the main reasons for
Karunakaran’s unhappiness with the central leadership, which
prompted him to quit the Congress Working Committee (CWC) last week,
triggering off a serious confrontation in the state unit with Assembly
polls round the corner.
Azad, who has
brought back with him a list specifying the changes sought by Karunakaran,
will along with Vora, report back to Sonia their discussions with
former Chief Minister. The central leadership, sources hinted tonight,
is likely to accede to some of the changes demanded by Karunakaran
to appease him and also bring about a rapprochement with his arch-rival
A.K. Antony.
Apparently,
Azad and Vora conveyed to Karunakaran in their meeting with him
today Sonia’s express wish that the party should fight the
coming elections unitedly and that any differences within the state
unit should be resolved internally rather than making them public.
On his part,
Karunakaran is reported to have neatly avoided making Padmaja’s
ticket an issue — at least officially — since he has all
along been insisting that he did not demand it and it was for the
high command to give it if it so wished. Also, the veteran leader
doesn’t want to be seen among his supporters as nothing more
than a nepotist father.
The necessary
ground for the Azad-Vora mission to be successful had already been
created before their departure. While Karunakaran had toned down
his earlier aggressive tone, his son Muraleedharan was playing the
role of an intermediary between his father and the central leadership.
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