Date:08/06/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/06/08/stories/2005060811400400.htm

Kerala

KPCC decision on panel raises eyebrows

Special Correspondent

N.P. Moideen, G. Balachandran and K.V. Thomas on committee to study poll defeat

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee's (KPCC) decision to appoint a three-member panel to examine the reasons for the United Democratic Front's (UDF) defeat in the Koothuparamba and Azhikode byelections has raised many an eyebrow.

The panel comprising N.P. Moideen, G. Balachandran and K.V. Thomas has been asked to report within a week the reasons for the defeat. Apart from Mr. Thomas, the others are just district-level leaders. Senior leaders are questioning the rationale behind such an exercise by a committee comprising mainly junior leaders.

The KPCC decision appears to be a weak response to the electoral defeat, especially since the results were a foregone conclusion and the ruling coalition had virtually conceded defeat even before the first gong for electioneering was sounded. Critics of this move feel that the leadership should seriously look at the dipping fortunes of the Congress in the Malabar region as a whole in the past several years to seek an answer for the defeat.

The exercise is meant to save the face of the Congress in time for the UDF meeting slated for June 13, especially in the context of the attempts made by coalition partners to put the Congress in the dock for the miserable show, according to these leaders.

Coalition partners say that the decades-old infighting in the Congress had resulted in the party being wiped out in Kannur district. There is also a general feeling that the setting up of the committee is a feeble attempt by the leadership to establish that the defeat did not have any thing to do with Mr. Karunakaran's split and the formation of National Congress (Indira).

The UDF meeting has been called mainly because of the pressure from Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). The IUML leadership wanted the liaison committee to discuss the impact of the Congress split on coalition politics in the light of the electoral defeat, sources said.