Kochi: Congress and Communist led fronts in Kerala are facing the worst ever challenge to counter the might of the rightist BJP which is basking under the glory of its power to lure opposition leaders into its fold.
Rise of BJP’s popularity is attracting political leaders towards the saffron party and the latest migrant is late chief minister K Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal who joined the BJP recently.
Her brother and former state party chief K Muraleedharan, MP, of Congress has disowned his sister accusing her of ditching the party, forgetting that it was he and his father Karunakaran who had damned the party to form a new party in early 2000s.
Padmaja stood unmoved in the Congress without following the footsteps of father and brother.
Interestingly, entry of veteran Congress leader and former Union Minister A K Antony’s son Anil Antony into BJP did not evoke such strong reactions as is happening in the case of Padmaja.
Groupism continues to thrive in Congress. The situation has become so horrible that party president K Sudhakaran was found abusing Opposition leader V D Satheeshan during a public function.
Satheeshan too was seen showing his displeasure towards Sudhakaran on a different occasion. Such things have exposed the state of affairs of the party demoralizing leaders.
Reports are there that more leaders are planning to quit the great old party.
On the other hand the CPM which is ruling the state is surrounded with countless issues including corruption charges against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, daughter Veena Vijayan and others.
Gold, currency smuggling through diplomatic channels, sexual allegations against former ministers, money laundering allegations, political violence, financial mess, pension suspension, salary delay among others have made things miserable for the Left government.
The Congress is accusing the BJP of protecting the CPM in exchange of favours to help the saffron party to gain in Lok Sabha elections by crushing the Congress.
