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Sonia
buys peace with 3 more seats
Sanjiv Sinha
New Delhi,
April 15: CONGRESS chief Sonia Gandhi today bought peace with
sulking Kerala strongman from Kerala K. Karunakaran by agreeing
to the change of candidates he demanded in three assembly constituencies
for the coming polls.
While mollifying
the former chief minister, Sonia chose to ignore his unstated demand
for an Assembly ticket for daughter Padmaja. Karunakarn had resigned
last week from the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to protest the
‘‘discrimination’’ against him in the list of
candidates finalised by the party central leadership.
The rapprochment
came about after Sonia’s emissaries, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Motilal
Vora, briefed her last night on their discussions with Karunakaran
a day before in Thiruvananthapuram. The three more seats where the
veteran leader will be allowed to have his say are Peravoor, Arunmula
and Vadakkekara.
The candidates
finalised by the party’s central election committee have been
withdrawn from the three constituencies and replaced by Karunakaran’s
chosen ones.
A.D. Mustafa
will now contest from Peravoor instead of Nuruddin, M. A. Chandrashekhar
will replace K.P. Dhanpalan in Vadakkekara and Sarla Devi will represent
Aranmula instead of K. Shivdasan. These seats were earlier held
by the faction led by Karunakaran’s arch-rival A.K. Antony.
According to
party sources, the addition of three more seats to Karunakaran’s
list brings his faction on a par with that of Antony. Both factions
will now contest 37 seats each from the 88 the party has decided
to fight in the 140-member Assembly.
Nine seats have
gone to the faction led by Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Chennithala and five
to former Rajya Sabha MP Vyalar Ravi’s men.
To reciprocate the high command’s gesture, Karunakara may withdraw
his resignation from the CWC. He is expected to urge his supporters
to fight next month’s polls unitedly with all other state unit
factions.
Before deciding
to bow to Karunakaran’s demands, the party leadership is learnt
to have consulted Antony and sought his cooperation. Antony had
earlier opposed any ‘‘reopening’’ of the candidates’
list but said he would abide by the high command’s decision.
Though Sonia was in no mood to give in to Karunakaran’s ‘‘pressure
tactics’’ for fear of setting a wrong precedent, she relented
keeping in mind the ground realities in Kerala. The veteran leader
has considerable clout in the state and could have hurt the party’s
prospects.
Karunakaran too backed down a little and refused to insist on a
ticket for his daughter. Maybe, he realised it could send a wrong
signal to his supporters in the state and to the party’s allies
such as the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and the Kerala Congress.
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