Kottayam: Kerala’s political landscape, well-settled for the last the last three-and-a-half decades, received a major jolt on Sunday when the Kerala Congress (Mani) chose to sever its relations with the United Democratic Front (UDF) and decided to sit as a separate block in the state Assembly.
The party also announced that will have no truck with either the Left Democratic Front or the National Democratic Alliance and that it will not upset the existing UDF arrangements in local self-government bodies and cooperatives.
Announcing the split after a meet of the party’s leaders, party chairman K.M Mani said the party and he as its leader had suffered humiliation at the hands of a section of the Congress leadership.
He listed the constant hounding by the Congress in the bar bribery case which led to his resignation as finance minister from the last UDF ministry as one of the reasons behind the decision to snap ties with the formation. The decision, taken by the conclave, was ratified by the party steering committee.
The Kerala Congress (M) was one of the key constituents of the UDF which was formed in 1981 under then Congress leader K Karunakaran. The animosity between Congress and the Kerala Congress had been growing after Mr Mani was forced to resign as the Finance Minister.
The Kerala Congress resented that while the Congress chose to go slow in the cases against then excise minister K. Babu who was also an accused in the case, it showed no leniency to Mr Mani.
