Vayalar rushed for patch-up with League

But that may not be enough to bring back on track the relations between the two bigger partners in the state8217;s United Democratic Front. Sparked off in adjacent Malappuram, which, for the League is more than just its only base of consequence despite its drubbing there by the Left in the last polls, the latest Congress-League spat was bound to rankle. Muslim-dominated Malappuram is where the League can8217;t afford to let things ride, however trivial. What rubbed the League the wrong way was Aryadan8217;s remarks to his partymen that the Congress probably could make the League follow its trail in Malappuram, if Congressmen seriously tried to use the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme to make some easy political gains.

The League was quick to see it as an upstage move, condemned the remarks and things soon deteriorated to a slanging match. The League is led by its unquestionable supremo, Panakkad Syed Mohemmedalai Shihab Thangal, and things reached a head after a provoked Aryadan suggested that the Government should take a close look at how Thangal had made his wealth. Aryadan8217;s son and parallel movie-maker Aryadan Shoukath added to that saying Thangal, who famously distributes not just political and social wisdom but magical water and beads as well to the crowds thronging his home daily, should be questioned the same way the Left Government was now probing fake godmen statewide.

While Aryadan even went on to claim the Congress can survive without the League in Malappuram if needed, the League had responded saying it need not be with the Congress coalition either. That the latest loaded remarks from a senior leader of its coalition partner had come at a time when it is still struggling to cope with a credibility crisis from the crippling blow in the last Assembly poll, has only added to the League8217;s consternation. The party, which had 16 seats in the earlier poll, won only eight of the 21 seats it contested, in its worst outing in a decade.

A section of the League leadership has still not lived down then Chief Minister AK Antony8217;s off the cuff barb that had hit its image hard within the community. Targeting the League, Antony had openly claimed the 8220;minority groups8221; were trying to armtwist his Government for more sops than what was due to them. Eagerly making up, the Congress had pulled all stops to get local senior League man E Ahmed into the UPA Cabinet while the Left kept shouting to keep him out. The League, which had always been in K Karunakaran8217;s stable during the pre-split group war in the state Congress, was the chief arbiter in the failed bid to get Karunakaran8217;s breakaway outfit back into the Congress, which had only served to distance it from the current anti-Karunakaran crop in the Congress.