TRIVANDRUM, 22 May — Former Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran has said he will do his utmost to get members of his group in the Congress Party into Chief Minister A.K. Antony’s Cabinet.
Before his departure for Delhi he gave enough indication that under no circumstances would he allow his group of legislators to be left behind when the final list is announced.
Antony and K. Muraleedharan, the newly-appointed president of the Congress party in Kerala, are already in the national capital, where they are expected to finalize the list of party legislators to be inducted in the state council of ministers.
Karunakaran had earlier said that he would not be going to Delhi because it had been decided that Antony, Muraleedharan, who is his son, and Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi would meet and finalize the list of ministers from the party. His sudden decision to go to Delhi shows he is not confident about things going his way without his presence, informed sources said.
With just eight vacant posts and at least a dozen hopefuls from the four Congress factions, the selection of ministers may become a long drawn-out process involving intense bargaining.
Karunakaran is reportedly keen on four of his confidants joining the Antony government. They are K.V. Thomas, a former member of parliament (MP), P. Sankaran who made way for Karunakaran’s son to become an MP from Calicut in the 1999 general election, Kadavur Sivadasan, a former minister, and Savitri Lakshmanan.
From the Antony camp, those under consideration are United Democratic Front (UDF) convener K. Shankaranarayan, M.A. Kuttapan, Oommen Chandy and M.M. Hassan. Vayalar Ravi, another group leader, is reportedly making use of his Delhi connections to see that his wife, Mercy Ravi, is there in the list. The other name doing the rounds is that of G. Karthikeyan, the leader of yet another group.
Reports here indicate that Karunakaran is adamant that Chandy should not be in the list and that Karthikeyan, once a close associate, should not be given any major portfolio.
He may also seek to put the brakes on Mercy Ravi’s ministerial ambitions by bringing forward Savitri Lakshmanan. Adding to the confusion are two other contenders — Vakkom Purushothaman, a former Lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and M.P. Gangadharan, a former minister.
They are reported to be trying to get in by the pulls and pressures exercised by senior non-Kerala Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, S.M. Krishna and Arjun Singh.
