High drama over Karunkaran's failure to get CWC berth

The controversy over senior leader K Karunakaran's failure to contest the recent Congress Working Committee election has triggered groupism in the party's Kerala unit.

Blaming state Congress president Vayalar Ravi and P C Chacko, MP, for the fiasco, a secret meeting of the Karunakaran faction last week demanded the two leaders's ouster from the group.

The meeting, attended by Karunakaran's son K Muralidharan, was informed that the senior leader had left his nomination papers with Ravi and Chacko, asking them to file them before the returning officer. The instructions were not complied with, denying Karunakaran a berth in the CWC.

However, Ravi and Chacko have a different version. The leaders said Karunakaran had instructed them to file the papers only after consulting Congress vice-president Jitendra Prasada or Ghulam Nabi Azad. They could not file the nomination as they were unable to locate either Jitendra Prasada or Azad before the deadline.

Ravi and Chacko fail to understand why the former Kerala chief minister kept mum on the issue. In fact, it was Muralidharan who first raked up the issue, two days after the poll.

However, the rival Congress groups including the one headed by Antony consider the drama an eyewash. The Antony group feels that Karunakaran's goal was to get nominated to the CWC.

However, with A K Antony becoming a nominated CWC member, Karunakaran seems to be chasing a mirage.

Both Karunakaran and Antony were members of the last CWC. While Antony had been elected, Karunakaran was nominated by then party president P V Narasimha Rao.

Antony, who did not attend the Calcutta plenary session in protest against the cancellation of organisational elections in the state, is close to both Sitaram Kesri and Sonia Gandhi.

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