After Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the Congress is caught in a seat sharing tangle with its alliance partners in Kerala, so far the only clear winning state for the ruling party at the Centre. Senior leader and union defence minister AK Antony has landed in Kerala and has begun discussions with alliance partners of the United Democratic Front, on how best to resolve contrary claims.
This is even as the nomination and selection of candidates for the Congress has been left to Umman Chandy and Ramesh Cheninthala, with a senior leader admitting that the chief ministership of the state will go to either one of these two leaders.
Out of the 140 seats in Kerala assembly, the Congress will contest around 85 seats with the rest of the seats being distributed amongst its alliance partners in the UDF. All the 21 congress members of legislative assembly are likely to be renominated by the Congress, since they won at a time when the party received a drubbing at the hands of the Left Democratic Front during the last assembly elections.
The scramble for seats in the UDF has begun big time. The Kerala Congress is asking for 23 seats since it is now a major alliance partner after the merger of the two Kerala Congresses. Negotiations are on, with sources saying they may settle for 17 to 18 seats.
The Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithy led by KR Gauri amma is asking for 5 seats, with the Congress ready to give them 4 seats. The socialist Janata Dal is asking for 12 seats while the Congress is ready to give them only 5 seats.
The Muslim League is asking for 23 seats and they may be given 23 seats, but the issue is which constituency, since there are differences over what the Congress wants to give and what the Muslim League wants.
A number of leaders want their nominees to be given tickets. Prominent among them is senior leader and union minister Vayalar Ravi, who has opted out of the chief ministerial race, leaving Chandy and Cheninthala to battle it out for the top job. But he wants a ticket for his daughter Laxmi Ravi. She is looking to contest from Kottayam, a predominantly Catholic constituency.
At the same time, there are two other strong contenders for the same from the Congress, namely Latika Subhash, a Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary, and Joseph Vazhkan another KPCC general secretary.
Since Kerala is the state where the Congress first experimented with coalition politics and that too rather successfully, observers don't think there will be too many hiccups for the party in cobbling together the allies. But with all of them flexing their muscles, the leadership has dispatched the senior most Kerala leader AK Antony, to soothe ruffled feathers, and bring peace in their ranks before the electoral war with the LDF begins.
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