Bosses patch up, workers still seethe

The Congress high command8217;s much touted 8216;8216;success8217;8217; at effecting a patch-up between warring Kerala chieftains K. Ka...

The Congress high command8217;s much touted 8216;8216;success8217;8217; at effecting a patch-up between warring Kerala chieftains K. Karunakaran and A.K. Antony threatens to boomerang on the party with their supporters up in arms against their respective leaders for leaving them high and dry.

Karunakaran loyalists, livid with their leader for striking a deal that benefits only his family, have been flooding 10, Janpath with fax messages about how 8216;8216;lakhs of rupees8217;8217; have been paid to members of the Karunakaran family to get Lok Sabha seats, sources said.

The Antony group too is unhappy with the rapprochement and feel that their leader has 8216;8216;surrendered to the politics of blackmail8217;8217; by giving in to Karunakaran8217;s 8216;8216;wholly self-centred8217;8217; demands 8212; a Rajya Sabha seat for himself, his erstwhile Lok Sabha seat Mukundapuram for his daughter Padmaja Venugopal, and a Cabinet post for son K. Muraleedharan.

8216;8216;All Antony wants is to safeguard his chief ministership and all Karunakaran wants is to promote his family 8212; neither care for their supporters,8217;8217; said an erstwhile Antony man, bitter at the turn of events in his home state.

The brewing crisis in Kerala came out in the open today with Karunakaran groupie Rajmohan Unnithan openly accusing Muraleedharan of accepting Rs 25 lakh to give the Kollam seat to lightweight Sooranad Rajasekharan. In an interview to a private TV channel, Unnithan 8212; who was a contender for the seat 8212; said Rajasekharan had approached Padmaja with the money but she had refused it. He then went to Karunakaran8217;s son and got the ticket.

While Unnithan has so far confined his attack to the son and defended the father-daughter duo, other Karunakaran loyalists are accusing the daughter of accepting money to give away seats. Though they have not gone public with their accusations, messages are being sent to the AICC to stop Padmaja from getting the Mukundapuram seat, sources said.

The campaign is having some effect since the AICC has stalled the release of the Kerala list even though 15 names the Congress will contest 17 seats in the state were cleared by the Central Election Committee CEC on March 15. The two seats that were left open are Mukundapuram and Calicut.

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The Calicut seat is proving as contentious as Mukundapuram because a 8216;8216;rank outsider8217;8217;, V. Balaram, is the front-running candidate. The basis of his claim is that he vacated his Assembly seat Wadakkanchery in Thrissur district for Muraleedharan when he became a minister and as a quid pro quo was promised the Calicut Lok Sabha seat 8216;8216;even though he has only seen the Calicut railway station in passing8217;8217;, an embittered Congressman said.