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Karunakaran seeks choice seats for himself, son

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

Senior Congress leader K Karunakaran's manoeuvres to ensure winnable seats for him and his twice-defeated son, K Muralidharan, coupled by the call by a section of the bishops to have proportional representation for the Christian community in the Lok Sabha have made candidate selection a tough proposition for the Congress in Kerala.

The party's election committee meeting is scheduled to be held at Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday in the presence of All India Congress Committee observer Eduardo Faleiro. Karunakaran has already made public his preference for the Mukundapuram seat for himself and the Kozhikode seat for his son.

Karunakaran's preference for Mukundapuram is interesting since he had dislodged senior Congressman P C Chacko from there in the last election as part of his bid to deny him nomination. Though Chacko succeeded in getting a ticket he had to be content with neighbouring Idukki.

The present move by Karunakaran might lead to Chacko being denied the Idukki seat, as A C Jose would settle for vacating the Mukundapuram seat only if he were restored his original Idukki seat. Jose has already questioned the propriety of Karunakaran's preference as the Congress Working Committee allows the sitting MPs to retain their seats.

Karunakaran's selection of the Kozhikode seat for his son would also lead to displacement of a sitting MP, in this case P Shankaran. The latter, who initially resisted the move by Karunakaran to wrest his seat, has reluctantly agreed to opt out of contest after he had a meeting with the former chief minister recently.

However, a substantial section in the party is not agreeable to the Karunakaran move. They feel that fielding Muralidharan at Kozhikode would be a blatant violation of the CWC norm, which denies a seat to a candidate who has lost two consecutive elections.

Karunakaran's moves might affect the fate of several candidates in central Travancore, which is part of the Christian belt in the state. In fact, the bishops' call for more seats to the members of the Christian community is linked to Karunakaran's manoeuvres.

The Kerala Catholic Federation made the demand after Karunakaran voiced his intention to contest the Mukundapuram seat. They feel that this would upset the balance in the Christian belt. The bishops fear that the shifting of constituencies among the Congress candidates would make it difficult for the sitting Christian MPs to retain their seats.

The bishops obviously do not cherish Karunkaran's candidature in a constituency like Mukundapuram, where the Christians have a substantial presence. He had hurt the feelings of the community by questioning the numerical strength of a particular denomination of the community in Mukundapuram during the last election.

The Congress is also finding it difficult to accommodate the demands made by some of its partners in the United Democratic Front for more seats. While the minor partners like the Kerala Congress-Jacob, Communist Marxist Party, Janadipatya Samrakshana Samiti and the Kerala Congress-B have demanded one seat each the Indian Union Muslim League has sought four and the Kerala Congress-M two.

The state Waqf Board has sought four seats for the Muslim community in line with the demand made by the bishops.

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