Thrishivaperoor: When Shri K Karunakaran, the crafty old man of Kerala politics, handed over the flag of his new party to his son, Shri K Muraleedharan, many in the audience were left wondering if he had finally lost the script. The veteran ‘leader’ would have liked his family form a dynasty at the state level in the Congress, on the lines of the Nehru-Gandhi family at the national level. For almost a decade now, he had tricked and blackmailed the Congress leadership at the Centre and at the state level, into deals, which foisted Shri Muraleedharan on to the state unit of the Congress in return for peace from him. But, the ever-spiraling ambitions of the father-son duo and the dormancy of Shri A K Antony’s leadership ended up in the parliamentary positions from the state being handed over to the opposition Left front on a platter. A complete disconnect with the grassroots meant that the Congress high-command did not know what actions to take until the state unit of the Congress had lost all semblance of credibility.
It was only after a couple of months that a leadership change in the government and a course correction in group politics happened. Less-idealistic but highly shrewd politicians took charge of the anti-Karunakaran forces in the Congress in a process, which found Shri Antony pleading once again before the party leadership for accommodating Karunakaran and his family. Yet, neither Shri Antony nor Shri Karunakaran’s friends at the centre, Shri Pranab Mukherjee and Shri Motilal Vohra, could stop Shri Karunakaran’s exit from the party. The central leadership apparently expects the party, as would anyone familiar with the see-saw politics of Kerala, a chance to sit in the opposition after the next Assembly elections. Hence, it becomes pointless to pamper Shri Karunakaran. The fact that even the Left wouldn’t openly woo him would have been considered when Shri Muraleedharan was expelled from the party for six years.
At his moment of reckoning, Shri Karunakaran was forced to choose between the party he built in the state and his son. He chose his son. Ironically, now that he finds himself outside the Congress, any dynasty, which he would have wanted to build through his son, can now be realized only in a setting similar to that of any of the Kerala Congress factions, where he could be a mere scarecrow on the fields of either of the opposing fronts in Kerala. What a fall for someone who was affectionately called by many Keralites as ‘the leader’! Smt Margaret Alwa appropriately referred to Shri Karunakaran’s problem as ‘son-stroke’. It is likely that history would judge him a trifle too harshly for succumbing to this sickness at the twilight of his life.
It was only after a couple of months that a leadership change in the government and a course correction in group politics happened. Less-idealistic but highly shrewd politicians took charge of the anti-Karunakaran forces in the Congress in a process, which found Shri Antony pleading once again before the party leadership for accommodating Karunakaran and his family. Yet, neither Shri Antony nor Shri Karunakaran’s friends at the centre, Shri Pranab Mukherjee and Shri Motilal Vohra, could stop Shri Karunakaran’s exit from the party. The central leadership apparently expects the party, as would anyone familiar with the see-saw politics of Kerala, a chance to sit in the opposition after the next Assembly elections. Hence, it becomes pointless to pamper Shri Karunakaran. The fact that even the Left wouldn’t openly woo him would have been considered when Shri Muraleedharan was expelled from the party for six years.
At his moment of reckoning, Shri Karunakaran was forced to choose between the party he built in the state and his son. He chose his son. Ironically, now that he finds himself outside the Congress, any dynasty, which he would have wanted to build through his son, can now be realized only in a setting similar to that of any of the Kerala Congress factions, where he could be a mere scarecrow on the fields of either of the opposing fronts in Kerala. What a fall for someone who was affectionately called by many Keralites as ‘the leader’! Smt Margaret Alwa appropriately referred to Shri Karunakaran’s problem as ‘son-stroke’. It is likely that history would judge him a trifle too harshly for succumbing to this sickness at the twilight of his life.
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