In party general secretary Prakash Karat’s hometown, Palakkad, an embarrassed CPI(M) has hastily dropped chairmanship of the trouble-torn local municipality, minutes after learning that five of the nineteen councillor who voted for its candidate, A K Chandrankutty, in the chairman’s election were BJP men.Chandrankutty conveyed to the returning officer that he was quitting even before taking the oath, plunging the headless municipality into crisis again. The CPI(M) has been bent on getting the municipal council dissolved, hoping to return with a majority after the repoll, and the BJP has been clinging to it. This is the only local body in Kerala where the BJP has been tantalizingly close to tasting power, which the Left and the UDF have been trying to stall even while fighting each other.Today was the municipality’s fourth successive and futile bid to elect a chairman. Twice, no party fielded candidates, and once the same CPI(M) man was elected unopposed, only to quit immediately since Congress and Muslim League councillors had voted for him.Originally, the Left and the BJP had been tied at 17 seats each and the UDF had 16 in the 50-member Palakkad Municipal Council. But after a DIC(K) councilor crossed over to the UDF and losing one of its other seats in a bypoll, the Left now has only 15 and the UDF 18.The municipal chairman’s slot is reserved for Scheduled Castes, and none of the 17 BJP councillor belong to that category, ruling out the job for itself.Though the UDF had maintained that it had no intention to rule this municipality without enough elbow room and remained aloof, it fielded its own candidate today to take on the CPI(M) man, bolstered by its newly acquired majority.The BJP, however, used its own political untouchability to thwart both sides at one go: it asked five of its councillor to cast their vote for the CPI(M) man, and the rest to abstain. The CPI(M) candidate ended up with 20 votes and the UDF candidate got just 18.With no solution in sight to the stalemate, and the municipality’s work stalled for want of a chairman, the Election Commission had suggested this municipal council’s dissolution and fresh elections. But the Kerala High Court ruled against the EC move and asked for another attempt to elect a chairman, which too failed today.“We had asked our district committee there to vote whichever way they choose. If the Left and the Congress are peeved at it, why don’t they dare to try out a UPA-style experiment in Palakkad keeping us out?,” asks PS Sreedharan Pillai, state BJP president.While the EC is said to be weighing other options, including earmarking the chairman’s slot for women or STs to break the stalemate, Pillai said his party did not rule out the council’s eventual dissolution.
