THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Government Chief Whip P C George joined issue with his bete noire Anto Antony, re-elected Pathanamthitta MP, on Friday for the latter’s outbursts against him at the KPCC meet the other day describing him as “a rabid dog running into houses.’’
Stooping to conquer at any cost, George came out with a blog picturing Anto Antony as ‘a dog with an ulcerous back which fears to tread under thorns’, opening another war front in the regional politics of eastern Kottayam and around. Without naming the MP directly, George shed enough hints about his target in the blog, through a sarcastic and even derogatory description of the ‘colourless and penniless past’ of the former. The blog begins with a mocking of the so-called assassination threat alleged by Anto Antony against him and family members after the LS polls and the security cover availed of by him for it, through the words of a ‘nil-pedigreed street dog’.
Anto Antony refused to comment on the blog post. ‘’I cannot stoop to the level of George. I had only brought the handiwork of George during LS polls for defeating me in the KPCC meet. I’ve not aired anything in public,’’ he said. However, George kept fuming and said that people knew who among them was really ‘’insane.’’ With the nasty-looking posturings of George as a rejoinder to the one-upmanship of Anto, the equations between the Congress and Kerala Congress in some pockets of Kottayam and adjoining districts may go through a bad patch once again.
Hardly any action was initiated against George by the KC leadership, despite demands from within its fold, mainly raised by supporters of minister P J Joseph, from time to time. The irrepressible George always adopted a strategy to take a step backward whenever opposition mounted against him from the state leadership of the Congress and the UDF, only to bounce two step forward.
George was barred from attending LS poll campaign in Kottayam segment, where Jose K Mani MP was re-elected as the KC(M) nominee, as well as in Idukki and areas other than the Poonjaar Assembly segment in Pathanamtitta LS segment, after Congress insisted on his exclusion fearing that it would be counter-productive at the hustings. George had to be content with campaigning in a few northern Kerala segments in last LS polls.
An interesting aspect of the George’s show was that not many within the fold of the Kerala Congress itself are enamoured with his foul speak coupled with eating of many of his own words even when it remain alive in the memory of the public. When his son and Youth Front state secretary Shone George and his accomplices were roughed up severely by cops amid a tiff with them after the LS polls in his home turf of Eerattupettah, protests didn’t come up from anywhere.
The clash between Anto and George is purely local, as both of them have their political interests tagged to a same region. The MP also hails from Eerattupettah and the war of the titans, both belonging to the Catholic community, is for local hegemony. That they don’t see eye to eye will eventually cost the UDF, even when it will sharpen the arsenal of their respective camps. Incidentally, BJP had wrested a grama panchayat ward in the by-polls held after the LS polls in the belt. The Poonjar Assembly segment, represented by P C George, was always noted for political harakiri and underhand deals between leaders of opposite political camps, in which, the people have also revelled from time to time. The fight between the MP and MLA is only the latest edition, adding spice to its political tradition.