War erupted in Kerala’s Congress on Thursday over allocation of a fifth Cabinet berth to the Muslim League in the Cabinet of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Several top Congress leaders stayed away from the swearingin ceremony of the two new Ministers amid protests all over the State against alleged disruption of community balance in the Government. Mu s l i m L e a g u e’s Manjalamkuzhy Ali and Kerala Congress (J)’s Anoop Jacob took oath as Ministers of the Chandy Cabinet on Thursday even as the BJP observed a hartal in Thiruvananthapuram. With this, the minorities’ representation in the 21-member Chandy Cabinet rose to 12 making the majority community (with nine Ministers) a minority in the Government. In the former 20-member L D F C a b i n e t l e d b y VS Achuthanandan, the Christian community was represented by three ministers and the Muslims by just two. All the remaining 15 berths were occupied by persons from the majority community. “The Congress-led UDF has lost its political character,” said Achuthanandan referring to the granting of a fifth Cabinet post to League. On T hu r s d ay, C h an d y sought to pacify majority community outfits by shuffling the p or t fo l i o s of h im s e l f and Congress Ministers loyal to him but the effort proved almost useless. He handed the Home portfolio which he was holding to his trusted lieutenant Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan (belonging to the Hindu Nair community) who was in charge of Vigilance. The Revenue portfolio was taken away from him and given to Adoor Prakash, a representative of the Hindu Ezhava community and the Health portfolio he was handling was given to VS Sivakumar, a Nair who was already handling Devaswom (temple affairs).
A r y a d an Mu h amma d w a s given Transports in addition to Power which he was holding. However, the gesture could not pacify the majority comm u n i t y o r A r y a d a n Muhammad, who stayed away from the oath-taking ceremony along with former State C o n g r e s s p r e s i d e n t K Mu r a l e e d h a r a n , C on g r e s s MLAs TN Prathapan and VD Satheesan, Kerala CongressB’s Minister KB Ganesh Kumar and his father and party chairman R Balakrishna Pillai. “This portfolio shuffle is just a knick-knack Chandy is playing to satisfy the majority community. But that is not going to serve any purpose,” said G Sukumaran Nair, general secretary of the NSS, the outfit of Hindu Nair community. “My question to Chandy is whether all those belonging to the majority communities should leave Kerala,” he said. Vellappally Natesan, general secretary of the SNDP, outfit of the influential Hindu Ezhavas, said Chandy had knelt before the Muslim League by giving it a fifth chair in the Cabinet.
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