THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and other key referees in the government have gone behind the curtains during the interval in the ongoing tug-of-war in the Kerala Congress (M), what emboldens Government Chief Whip P C George to spit fire and threats even after getting clear signals that he is on the losing side ? Apart from the prospect of getting finished politically, George is cashing in on the thinking in the Congress camp in which way the entire developments is going to recoil upon the government.
However, it has become confirmed that the Congress has decided in principle to accede to the demands of Kerala Congress with regard to P C George. Chandy discussed the issue with senior Congress leader A K Antony on Saturday at Kochi. Sealing off the fate of George as per the wish of KC(M) legislature party is only a formality and a matter of days, soon after the CM returns from Dubai during next mid-week. At the most, the action will be held back till Easter.
But still, the Congress is probing ways to douse the fire for at least the middle of next month and save the UDF prospects in the Rajya Sabha elections and if possible dodge till the Aruvikkara Assembly bypoll. But Finance Minister K M Mani and almost all in the KC(M) who want to axe George, are gripped with a ‘party first, government second’ mood now. KC(M) has left it to the UDF to decide on the question of retaining or dumping George from the front, while asserting that disciplinary action initiated by the party against George is purely an internal affair and hence unquestionable by external forces. The UDF leadership is convinced that P C George cannot be allowed to pull on, overriding the vociferous demand of KC(M) leadership for stripping of the post and also bar him from attending the liaison committee meets of the front.
Attempts to mellow both sides has reached a dead end, even when the damage for UDF and government on the whole owing to the latest developments is irreversible at the moment. The tall claims of George, on the strength of his being the patron of the Hindu Nadar community-tagged VSDP, with regard to the forthcoming bypoll in Aruvikkara segment, where the community has a small but crucial base in two panchayats, has been taken note of by the UDF leadership. He has also been claiming his clout in the Dalit Human Rights Movement.
Even when he is the darling of cynical minds and who those who take pride in being anti-establishment, the tall claims of George as a self-proclaimed anti-corruption messiah now is a laughing point for all those not only in the political spectrum across the state, but among a vast section of the general public.
If Oommen Chandy and even K M Mani had benefited from George as an ‘asset’ in the initial years of the government, the politics of alleged blackmailing and betrayal pursued by the latter has earned him only more foes than friends in the UDF. The alleged role George had played in shooting up the solar scam and bar bribery issue is an open secret, but then the UDF could do precious little to checkmate or expose him. Naturally,all are paying a price for their silence and inaction in the past. But as the play is nearing to an end, everyone in the UDF, perhaps with the exception of a determined KC(M), is left in a catch-22 situation. For KC(M), any trouble in the offing, could be only less than shouldering an irrepressible George.
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