KOTTAYAM: The LDF received a second jolt to its choice of candidate in Poonjar on Monday, with AICC member George J Mathew, ex-MLA and ex-MP, spurning the pre-conditions laid for support and declaring that the short chapter vis-a-vis the CPM remains closed.
Earlier, Alphons Kannamthanam, the bureaucrat-turned-legislator from Kanjirapally, had dropped his plan to contest from Poonjar. “I am not contesting,” George J Mathew declared on Monday. Addressing a news conference here George J Mathew, flanked by his uncle and ex-MLA K V Kurien, said he was keen to protecting the self-respect and prospects of the Congress at any cost and would not ever think of severing ties with it. “With Kannamthanam leaving the scene abruptly, I was pressured to step in. But I had insisted with the top LDF leadership that I would be a total Independent and should not be dictated on anything, if elected. They agreed to it but slowly, approach began to change. I said I cannot be bought on their terms and conditions,” he said.
“The Poonjar seat, which constitutes over 60 percent of the areas under the former Kanjirapally segment, rightfully belongs to the Congress. The Congress workers in the area are agitated over the total surrender of the party before the Kerala Congress,” George J Mathew said, recalling that the Kanjirapally segment, which was a seat of the Kerala Congress, was taken over by the Congress in the late eighties mainly on his insistence. “Of the nine Assembly seats in Kottayam district, the Kerala Congress is eligible for only two - Pala and Kaduthuruthy - on the basis of its strength, the latest analysis being the outcome of the local bodies polls,” he said. “At any
cost, the Congress should contest in four seats and Poonjar should be definitely one,” he insisted. He felt that there was a wave of support for the Congress in Poonjar, and given a ‘winnable’ candidate, none else could claim the seat. “It is a fact that the Kerala Congress is weakening the Congress,” he maintained. However, he evaded a direct answer when asked whether he would work for the defeat of the KC(M) nominee in Poonjar in the polls.