Karunakaran warning against back-stabbing

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 16. The senior Congress leader, Mr. K. Karunakaran, today cautioned the party rank and file, cutting across factional affiliations, against back-stabbing Congress candidates in the Assembly elections.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. Karunakaran said the 1996 experiment should on no account be repeated. As a result of the 1996 experiment, the party had to spend five years on the Opposition benches. The party and the UDF could coast back to power only if a united effort was made by party workers by sinking differences, he said.

The press conference was convened to express Mr. Karunakaran's reactions to the party high command's decision to allot three more seats to his supporters. Tracing the circumstances leading to the problems that had cropped up in the party, Mr. Karunakaran said he was not fully satisfied with the high command's decision, but was happy that it had realised that it would not be possible to face the elections by ignoring a major section in the party.

There are no losers or winners. Neither is there a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Had a favourable decision not been taken, it would have been difficult to face the elections, he said. Mr. Karunakaran urged the party workers to implement the Central leadership's decisions in its full spirit. He said that a large number of his supporters, who had stood with the party through thick and thin, had not got tickets.

Explaining the reasons for demanding the Peravoor, Vadakkekara, and Aranmula seats, Mr. Karunakaran pointed out that Kannur was the most difficult district for the Congress, but not a single nominee of his had been given ticket in this district, where the Congress would be directly taking on the CPI(M). His nominee in Peravoor, Mr. A.D. Mustafa, was the chairman of the Seva Dal, besides being a learned professor and member of a minority community.

Mr. Karunakaran said that he had demanded the Vadakkekara seat with a view to preserving the prerogative of a sitting MP to nominate at least a candidate, while in Aranmula, the issue was related to giving a ticket to a woman candidate, in tune with the party president's wish to field more women. In all these cases, the need to maintain communal equations had been taken care of, he said.

Referring to the ticket aspirations of his daughter, Ms. Padmaja Venugopal, Mr. Karunakaran alleged that his detractors had unleashed a whispering campaign that he was interested only in perpetuating family interests.

The high command decision would scotch this campaign and attest to the fact that he had not lobbied for his daughter. She had opted out of the race at the first instance saying that she did not want a ticket at the cost of an ardent supporter, that too, a woman, Mr. Karunakaran said.

The Karunakaran camp is obviously jubilant at the way things have turned out for them. The mood at Mr. Karunakaran's residence was reflective of this, compared to the gloom in the Antony camp.

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Section  : Southern States
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