The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a Left Democratic Front (LDF) ally with two MLAs and a Cabinet berth in the Pinarayi Vijayan government, seemed to face a political predicament its alliance partner, the Janata Dal (S), is struggling to fend off.
A leader of the NCP (Ajith Pawar faction) in Kerala, N.A. Mohammad Kutty, sought to put the LDF under duress by demanding Forest Minister A.K. Saseendran’s resignation from the Cabinet.
The demand has provenance in the internal split that has plagued the NCP at the national level since last year.
In 2023, NCP national supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajith Pawar broke ranks with his uncle and walked off with most party legislators to support the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra.
The rupture with familial overtones laid the ground for a legal battle for the party’s legacy, including NCP’s name and election symbol (Clock).
The Election Commission of India (ECI) ruled recently that Mr Ajith was entitled to the party name and symbol, dealing a political blow to Mr. Pawar and his loyalists in Kerala, including Mr. Saseendran and NCP MLA from Kuttanad, Thomas K. Thomas.
Discomfitingly for the ruling front, Mr. Kutty told television reporters that Mr. Saseendran had contested on an NCP ticket and used the “clock” as his election symbol.
He demanded that Mr. Saseendran honour the ECI’s decision by either resigning from the Cabinet and Assembly or politically redeem himself by publicly swearing his allegiance to the pro-BJP NCP faction headed by Mr. Ajith Pawar.
Mr. Kutty warned the NCP would seek legal recourse against Mr. Saseendran if he continued in the LDF Cabinet as NCP’s representative. He claimed to bear Mr. Ajith’s imprimatur.
Earlier, Mr. Saseendran had criticised Mr. Ajith’s lurch to the right and backed Mr. Pawar’s secular line that dovetailed with the LDF’s.
The JD(S) Kerala unit is still struggling to shrug off the “discomfiting political stigma” of its national leadership throwing in its lot with the BJP in Karnataka while the party remained an LDF ally in Kerala.
The Congress reportedly senses a political windfall in the developments in the NCP.
The party appeared poised to punch holes in the LDF’s secular position and thereby hobble its pivot to minorities by claiming that the ruling front played host to two BJP allies in the Cabinet.
