THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON MURALI KARUNAKARAN

What a shame! While a congress member, Murali‘s motivation was always personal - to seize power in the party. In the mind of the ordinary citizen who are Congress supporters, Murali is the ultimate symbol of treachery. One cannot forget the Ernakulan 2003 September byelection during A K Antony’s chief ministership, when the Karunakaran father and son duo, in a shameful show of groupism, supported the Marxist candidate Sebastian Paul , while enjoying the privileges of congress party membership.

What does Congress need such corrupt backstabbers for? I wouldn’t use the Brutus analogy here, for Brutus was a noble man who stabbed from the front, because he loved Rome more. With this father and son duo, it was a fight to bring down Antony who was trying to assert himself as the CM by installing Principles into the Congress party, and bring about unpopular reforms that were good for the state and would bring pay dividends eventually. If the Centre had stood by Antony, the congress would have been a much stronger party now, and emerged, by this time, like a phoenix, after the initial setbacks that the Karunakaran duo would have succeeded in causing.

But then, Antony did not put his foot down, as he did once after the Emergency. Oomen Chandy and his supporters were helpless. The high command gave enough time for Antony to save his face and silenced Oomen Chandy’s resistance to the Karunakans by giving him the Chief Minister ship. A magnificent opportunity for self correction was lost. That same hook or by crook attitude is what we see today. There is no room for principles in politics. Also, what we witnessed on 2003 was the question of WHO ARE THE INHERITORS OF THE CONGRESS PARTY? tHE DYNASTY OR THE HARDWORKING PLEBIAN. Needless to say, the high command had its own reasons to favour the former.

But there are many fools of which I am one, who never give up hoping. I know that for many ordinary Congress voters like me, the 2003 bye elections was a defining moment for our political affiliations. The Indian National Congress was no longer the only party for us. In the absence of an alternative, there was a loss of interest in politics, resulting in a reluctance to cast our votes.

The High Command does not realize the damage that it is doing by taking this very epitome of arrogance and corruption back into the party. A person who can go public calling his own sister Munjenma shatru (enemy in the previous incarnation), who kept party hopping, who fell out with the father and who has harshly criticized every congress leader of import and who has proved to be absolutely without scruples when it comes to self aggrandisment, is being taken back into the folds of the party. Party, for goodness sake, is not a family matter. It should factor in the concerns of the voters. Such decisions should not be taken, ignoring the wishes of the people.

Ideally, Oommen Chandy, Chennithala should break away from the Congress and perhaps go into an electoral arrangement with the parent party. They have enough political base for that. That’s the only way this prodigal son can be leashed once he returns.

Once again, shame on Congress High Command! A party which takes decisions for old time’s sake, and succumbs to emotional blackmailing by a stalwart who has never been the best party man but whose only endearing quality to the High Command is the support he extended to a Prime Minister when she was being isolated by her more conscientious partymen for trampling over democratic values , is not a party for which I’d take the trouble of casting my vote for.

It’d be a betrayal of my conscience.