Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Congress (M) chairman and finance minister K.M. Mani’s overture for a joint campaign with the Left against Kasturirangan recommendations signals his desire for a new political engagement with the Left but the CPM is wary given their unsavoury dalliance with him in the early 1980s Nayanar ministry.
The CPM does not see the need for an ideologically risky tie-up with the pro-Church party in the run-up to the LoK Sabha elections. Given the current political context, the CPM could do without the support of Mani, who will demand his pound of flesh.
According to the grapevine, informal discussions a few months ago on an alternate ministry hadn’t gone far mainly because the CPM didn’t want to concede Mani’s tall claims to the new dispensation.
But Mani sees a great political opportunity emerging on the anti-Kasturirangan plank, especially when both the Left and he feel the Centre’s hurried notification exposes the UDF Government’s failure to stall the Centre from rushing through the radical reform process.
PCC president Ramesh Chennithala sensed the move when he said certain quarters were out to make political capital out of the Kasturirangan recommendations. This would mean an attack on the Left but it was also directed at Mani, whose intentions were not all that abstract.
Government chief whip P.C. George, close to Mani, has hinted that the UDF would find the new developments counterproductive.
A section in the KC (M) has been plumping for a return to the LDF fold but the anti-defection laws stands in the way of any individual political adventurism.
Sources say UPA’s bleak electoral prospects at the centre have prompted KC (M) to think in terms of new alliances.
The party reckons that breaking off with the Congress does not prevent future accommodation given the often thin electoral margins in the State’s coalitional setup and in politics, nobody is untouchable.
