Congress, IUML at loggerheads over lone RS seat going to UDF

The present strength of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the State Assembly would enable it to wrest an additional seat from the UDF. The UDF’s predicament is that there are two strong contenders for the lone seat at its command. Tension is building up between the largest and second largest partners of the UDF over securing renomination to the Rajya Sabha.

The IUML is understood to be adamant that Samadani should get a second term. Besides Samadani, IUML has one more nominee in the Rajya Sabha from Kerala (Korambayil Ahammed Haji). On the contrary, the Congress’s worry is that it has only one Rajya Sabha member from Kerala and if this seat is forfeited to the IUML, the State unit of the Congress would go unrepresented in the Upper House.

But the League is reportedly in no mood to relent. It has dropped sufficient hints that it may go to the extent of pulling out of the UDF in the event of Samadani not being renominated to the Rajya Sabha. The Congress has taken the warning signals from the League seriously as it feels that walking out of the front on the issue would enable the League leadership to carry greater conviction with the rank and file of the party on the pull-out issue.

But the Congress itself is divided on the question of renominating Vayalar Ravi. Detractors of Ravi in the party have started canvassing support for KPCC president Thennala Balakrishna Pillai as successor to Ravi in the Rajya Sabha. Afterall, there is a time-honoured convention in the Congress of nominating KPCC presidents to the Rajya Sabha. Moreover, organisational election in the Congress is fast approaching and there are more than one contender for the post of KPCC president.

Party circles also do not rule out the possibility of A K Antony being nominated to the Rajya Sabha in the event of party president Sonia Gandhi deciding to have a leadership change in the State, with Antony going back to national politics and K Karunakaran or his son, K Muraleedharan, taking over the reigns of the party in the State. While Karunakaran has fallen from the grace of the party president by identifying himself with the anti-Sonia camp, Antony has of late endeared himself closer to Sonia as the head of the committee appointed by her to inquire into the reasons for the party’s debacle in the last Lok Sabha election.

The going is not all that smooth in the LDF camp either. Three LDF constituents, the CPI, RSP and NCP, have set their eyes on the one extra Rajya Sabha seat that would go to the LDF. LDF convener V S Achuthanandan had publicly committed himself to give `one full Rajya Sabha term’ to the RSP as and when fresh nominations are made in lieu of the Kollam Lok Sabha seat snatched away by the CPM from the RSP. This, according to RSP circles, is in addition to a standing offer to nominate an RSP representative by rotation when the Rajya Sabha seat presently held by Varkey Mattathil of the Kerala Congress (J) falls vacant.

But in the changed circumstances following the split in the RSP, CPM is unlikely to offer the promised Rajya Sabha nomination to the RSP. Moreover, CPM sources point out that the RSP had never agreed to swap the Lok Sabha seat for nomination to Rajya Sabha, but was insistent on retaining the Kollam seat during pre-poll negotiations. Even after the Lok Sabha elections, there had been no bilateral consultations on the Rajya Sabha nomination.

In the backdrop of the CPI losing all the four seats contested by it in the Lok Sabha election, the party is expected to stake its claim for parliamentary representation from Kerala.