Opposition hopes soar as infighting hits Kerala’s UDF

IANS/ThiruvananthapuramKerala’s Left Democratic Front appears calm, while dissent is brewing in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), just two days after the state voted to elect 20 Lok Sabha members.Infighting and differences of opinion over ticket allotment are now coming to the fore within the UDF, with the first salvo being fired by Kerala Congress (Mani) chief whip P C George.“Congress candidates like Anto Antony at Pathanamthitta and M I Shahnawaz at Wayanad were wrong choices,” George said.Antony and Shahnawaz are sitting members in the outgoing Lok Sabha.“The outcome in Thiruvananthapuram (Shashi Tharoor) and in Palakkad where M P Veerendra Kumar contested is just impossible to predict. I predict around a dozen seats. A few seats held by the UDF will just disappear,” George, known for his razor sharp wit, saidKerala Congress (Mani) is the UDF’s third biggest ally.Anto Antony responded strongly to George’s comments, accusing him working with the opposition LDF.“I have no doubt and I will easily win. It’s only my detractors who fear that my seat will be lost. He (George) did his best to work along with our opposition and work against me,” Antony shot back.George has a running feud with Antony and with the Congress in Idukki district.George’s party had tried to wrest the Idukki Lok Sabha seat from the Congress but failed.Faced with an onslaught from the Catholic Church on account of the Kasturirangan report on the Western Ghats, the Congress under duress was forced to ask sitting Lok Sabha member P T Thomas to make way for state Youth Congress president Dean Kuriakose in the constituency.“All I did was to follow the stand of the national leadership on the Western Ghats issue. Initially, the top leadership of my party here did pay attention to what I was trying to impress upon them, but later they succumbed to pressure from the Kerala Congress (Mani) and also a section of my party leaders in Idukki. At the appropriate time, I will reveal more,” a miffed Thomas said.He is currently convalescing after an angioplasty.In an attempt to contain the damage, state Congress president V M Sudheeran spoke to George after his outburst but did not reveal what transpired between them.“I will not discuss it in public. The Congress is meeting on April 21 and 22 to assess the polls,” Sudheeran said.The LDF leadership is taking the dissent within the Congress as a cue for the electoral downfall of the UDF and a rise in its tally of seats.According to Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Pinnarayi Vijayan, once the poll results come out, the UDF’s disintegration will be complete.Former Communist Party of India national general secretary A B Bardhan also expressed confidence that in Kerala, the Left will win 14 seats and that his party stands an excellent chance of winning in all the four seats that they contested as part of the LDF.In the outgoing Lok Sabha, the UDF has 16 while the LDF has four members. This time, the Bharatiya Janata Party too is hoping that the lotus will finally bloom in the southern state.On Thursday, 74.04% of the 24mn electorate in the state cast their votes. Even though past statistics say that whenever the turnout has crossed 73%, the UDF has swept the polls, the LDF maintains this time history would be re-written.