– A. Narayanan
Kerala is considered to be one of the rare states which have a strong grass route level grip for the Congress party. It could be an interesting paradox that Kerala is the only state in India where the goods friends (outside Kerala); the Congress, and the CPI(M), are pretending to be bitter enemies. The real trouble was caused when the national leaders like Rahul Gandhi, who is also an elected member from Wayanad LS Constituency, facing such a dilemma as he couldn’t attack the CPI(M) led LDF in Kerala, which may put them in trouble in all the other parts of India.
Even during his election campaign in Wayanad, Rahul didn’t even say a word against his main opposition candidate of the CPI, who was a scapegoat. His verbal strides were against BJP and PM Modi, but the UDF cadre wanted to listen to the Left bashing from their beloved MP. After being elected to the LS, Rahul Gandhi kept coming to Wayanad, and meet people. Even when the LDF govt faced a serious threat in the form of Gold smuggling, Rahul Gandhi repeated the same verbal jugglery on BJP and Modi.
Although his advisers are prominent Malayali figures in the AICC, he didn’t want to put himself in trouble with the Left, so the local Cong leaders of Kerala are trying their best to compensate for the soft approach of Mr Gandhi with their explanation of what actually Rahul meant.
Rahul Gandhi was present in the closing ceremony of the Aishwarya Kerala Yatra(Kerala Prosperity March) by the Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala. This was a time when the LDF govt was in the line of fire on the allegations regarding giving access to a US company to have free trawling in the Kerala coast, putting the livelihood of lakhs of fishermen into danger. Rahul Gandhi didn’t even utter the name of the CM of Kerala, and he just mentioned the controversy and kept his guns on the central govt.
The funniest part is that he went to meet the fishermen community in Kerala, and repeated the same lie he spoke in Puducherry. In order to address the current threat caused by the state Govt’s decision, the Wayand MP told that he will constitute a fisheries ministry when gets the power. In fact, the Govt of India in 2019 had made a separate ministry for Fisheries, and still, the advisors didn’t brief him in this regard. But sensing the foolishness of his statement the KPCC issued a clarification on what Rahul really “meant”.
The Kerala leadership of the Congress party is in a fix. Whatever they want to fight and achieve, it has to be done on their own. The high command will only claim the credit of victory (if they managed to get one). According to the prominent political analyst Adv. A Jayashanker, “the Congress is trying their best to return to power, otherwise, with a fragile organizational setup, eventually the party will have a natural death, and space will be encroached by the surging BJP”.
Many in the youth congress want central leaders like Rahul to be kept away during the elections and want a more concentrated attack on CPI(M), which never gets approval from the High Command. The Congress needs the support of the left parties in some pockets of states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar, and Bengal. The acting state secretary of the CPI(M) has come out all guns firing at Rahul, as he alleged that Rahul kept mum on the issue of various enquiries being done by the central investigating agencies. He took a jibe saying that Rahul himself is the victim of the ‘wrong’ central probe.
This would keep the state leaders of the Cong on tows as Rahul never wants to break a good tempo with Sitaram Yechury, the General Secretary of the CPI(M). So it could be possible that he may disown his statement in the coming days of his tour. He put the party in a fix by lauding the steps taken by the LDF govt in dealing with the COVID, and the CM, Pinarayi Vijayan made full use of it by countering the allegations raised by the state Congress leaders.
Believe it or not, Rahul’s Kerala visits have become a liability to the Kerala unit of Congress as the major chunk of their precious time goes into defending their leader. For Rahul, the Dilemma started from day one of his entry into politics goes on..
