Thiruvananthapuram: So when K Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal leaves the Congress and buries the lotus, it will not pose a big challenge to the Congress, but it shows the depth of the crisis that is affecting the organization called Congress (Padmaja). The Congress points out that Padmaja’s allegation that the Congress has ignored her is baseless.
In 2001, when the AK Antony government came to power, under the pressure of K Karunakaran, his son Muralidharan became the KPCC president and his daughter Padmaja Venugopal became the KTDC chairperson. The truth is that Padmaja did not even join the Congress then. K Karunakaran and ultimately the Congress have been stonewalled for it. But everyone bit everything about the past events given to the Congress by the great K Karunakaran.
Despite the simmering anger of the people and the party ranks, Padmaja was fielded as the Congress candidate in the Congress stronghold of Mukundapuram under pressure from K Karunakaran in the 2004 elections. It should be remembered that even then Padmaja was not in any responsible position of the Congress. He won with a majority of 1,17,097 votes to the surprise of the CPM candidate Lonappan Nambatan who came to watch the contest in the iron fortress of the Congress.
Even after the UPA came to power in India, there was a general assessment that the main reason for the anti-incumbency sentiment against the AK Antony government that was in power in Kerala at that time was the undeserved favors given to K Karunakaran’s family, especially to Padmaja Venugopal. It was also an election in which the UDF lost 19 out of 20 seats. After that, in 2005, when Karunakaran broke with the Congress and first formed the National Congress Indira and then changed its name to the DIC, Muralidharan was with him then, but Padmaja did not join any of these movements even then. It is no secret that Karunakaran’s tendency to not give his children everything they asked for led to the split of the party itself.
In 2008, when the situation of DIC merging with NCP came up, K Karunakaran was unprepared and stood aside. Padmaja came into active politics as the leader of the Congressmen along with K Karunakaran. But then Muralidharan joined NCP and became the state president. When K Karunakaran left Muralidharan and returned to the Congress party, Padmaja also joined the Congress. Padmaja, who came with K Karunakaran, reached the KPCC executive committee saying that it was too much. Later, KPCC General Secretary and Vice President became a member of KPCC Political Affairs Committee. In 2016, he contested as a Congress candidate in Thrissur and lost to VS Sunilkumar. After that, Padmaja, who continued her activities with Thrissur as the center, entered the contest again as a UDF candidate in 2021, but in a heated three-cornered fight with Suresh Gopi as BJP candidate, Padmaja lost to CPI candidate P Balachandran by just 946 votes.
Padmaja, a constituency which the Congress has won continuously since 1991, has been defeated by its rivals. The Congress is facing the allegation that the party never gave Padmaja the position she deserved. But the three-digit number 946 kept haunting Padmaja. Padmaja suspected that some people in the Congress were behind the 2021 defeat in Thrissur, her father’s seat. Padmaja complained to the KPCC leadership by mentioning the names of a few leaders of Thrissur asking for an investigation, but the party did not take the complaint seriously. While grievances such as those raised by Padmaja may not be so much for the upper echelons of the party, there is a general sense of deep discontent simmering among the middle-class leaders and workers of the Congress.
It is indicated that the reason for the deadness of most of the booth levels of the party is the dissatisfaction of the middle class of the party. After K Sudhakaran and VD Satheesan took over the leadership, many leaders point out that there is no effective mechanism in the party to listen to workers and find fair redressal of their grievances. Many of the district congress committees that came to power in 2021 with K Sudhakaran and Satheesan are not able to show strong work in the districts.
Even during the time of K Karunakaran and AK Antony when the groups named after them were strong, the party has not faced such a crisis. Now compared to then, the party is facing such a dire crisis at a time when groups are relatively irrelevant. Many Congress leaders have indicated that if the Congress leadership does not realize this and take effective treatment, it will grow into a serious crisis that will eat away at the party.
Disappointment of consecutive losses to Congress in 2016 and 2021 and on the other hand many interventions by CPM with ruling influence are causing Congressmen to leave the party. A prominent leader told ETV Bharat that the disaffected grassroots are joining the CPM and not the BJP in many places. He points out that those who go to the CPM should never expect to return to the Congress if they go to the BJP.
However, there is no doubt that the daughter of the most prominent Congress leader in Kerala leaving the Congress camp just before an election will be the best weapon for the opponents to attack the Congress. When Padmaja comes to the BJP camp after leaving the Congress, the LDF will raise the usual campaign that they will definitely vote for the Congress.
Today’s Congress will also strengthen the Left campaign of tomorrow’s BJP. The LDF also sees a political goal through this campaign to win minority votes in their favour. The biggest challenge for the Congress in Kerala will be the 19 seats it won last time after overcoming all this. The most interesting result of this Lok Sabha election will be whether the entry of the sons of two former Congress Chief Ministers into the BJP will create a surprise for the BJP in Kerala.
