Sunday, February 26 2006 14:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: The move by UDF partner Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in Kerala to bring back senior leader K Karunakaran to the ruling combine ahead of the coming assembly polls in the state has hit roadblocks with a powerful section in the Congress against any tie-up with him.

After repeated assertions by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and KPCC President Ramesh Chennithala that a dialogue with Karunakaran, whose Democratic Indira Congress (K) is left alone in the state's bipolar polity after being dumped by the opposition CPI (M), was not on Congress' agenda, it was the turn of UDF convenor P P Thankachan to resent the League's unilateral move.

Political observers feel that it was apparently to discourage the IUML's plans that Thankachan stated yesterday that if the League was warming up to Karunakaran it was not with the knowledge of the UDF as a whole.

He was also forthright in his assertion that any decision regarding expansion of the front should be taken collectively.

A thinking is strong in the League, the UDF's second largest partner, that return of Karunakaran would boost the coalition's performance, especially in the Malabar area where the octogenarian leader still enjoys some goodwill among the traditional Congress and UDF supporters.

According to League sources, though the party had not opened any formal dialogue with DIC (K) some of the prominent leaders had been in touch with that party's top leadership.

The question of finding an honourable berth for DIC (K) also figured in the Muslim League's state executive meeting in Malappuram last week.

DIC (K) leaders have also confirmed that some of the League leaders were in touch with them.

Though DIC (K) State President K Muraleedharan put up a brave face asserting that the party was even prepared to contest all the 140 assembly seats on its own, he knows that it would be tough for any party to make an electoral presence without being part of either the UDF or the LDF in Kerala.

Also, DIC (K) leaders are also aware that remaining in political no-man's-land for long would lead to erosion of the party's support base, which exactly is what the anti-Karunakaran axis in the Congress is expecting to happen.

The Congress' calculaton is that keeping the doors open for all who had left the party a year back except for Karunakaran and Muraleedharan would pay dividends by the time elections are declared.

Political options for DIC (K), however, is limited since the leaders of that party had time and again asserted that it would have nothing to do with the BJP, which is the third, but electorally unlucky, player in the state.