Author: Liz Mathew
Publication: newkerala.com
Date: October 28, 2005
URL: http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=43343
Concerned over the party's falling support
amongst minorities in Kerala, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is planning to send
special emissaries to the state to lobby community leaders ahead of next year's
assembly polls.
Sources close to Gandhi said the Congress
president called a meeting of top Kerala leaders -- Chief Minister Oommen
Chandy, state party president Ramesh Chennithala and senior leader A.K. Antony
-- last week and asked them to take immediate steps to regain the support
base.
"Gandhi told the leaders that she was
ready to send senior party leaders Oscar Fernandes and Margaret Alva to talk
to Christian community leaders, including the bishops," a top party official
told IANS.
Although the leadership was concerned about
the diminishing support base for the Congress and ally Indian Union Muslim
League among Muslims, the meeting essentially focussed on Christians.
While Muslims constitute 25 percent of the
state's 32 million population, Christians form 19 percent.
The Congress has been facing one electoral
rout after another and could not manage a single seat in the last parliamentary
elections in 2004. It fared no better in the recently held local body polls,
with a landslide victory for the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) in
almost all 14 districts.
Congress leaders said a detailed analysis
of the local body poll results indicated that the party's minority support
base had "fallen alarmingly".
A section of the leadership has attributed
the electoral drubbings to the increasing loss of support amongst minorities
and backward communities.
Party leaders have also blamed former chief
minister Antony, who alienated some communities with his reported remark that
minorities had secured more privileges through collective bargaining.
"Both the communities had pressurised
the Congress leadership to replace Antony with Chandy," a senior party
leader from the state pointed out.
"If the leadership does not take any
immediate steps to regain them, the party's future is bleak. It will be utterly
poor in the upcoming by-election in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency
and the next state polls," the leader said.
The immediate challenge for the party is the
Thiruvananthapuram by-election on Nov 18.