INTERVIEW : K. KARUNAKARAN
Narasimha Rao has managed to buy time till the Delhi High Court decides on his appeal against the lower court's summons in the Lakhubhai cheating case. And if the court clears Rao the question of his stepping down will not arise, maintain the loyalists. Despairing dissidents now accuse Sharad Pawar of two-timing them. But the fact is that Rajesh Pilot and co. failed to keep the focus on the moral and political reasons while demanding Rao’s resignation. K. Karunakaran, though, did bring up the question of "moral uprightness" when he told THE WEEK that Rao should measure himself with the same moral yardstick he used while denying tickets to hawala tainted leaders in the elections. Karunakaran and Pawar perhaps represent two sides of the same coin. While both are for a united Congress, they differ on how to achieve this. Karunakaran is open that Rao must go; Pawar is circumspect and does not hold Rao alone responsible for the party's ills. With such basic differences, unless the dissidents get their act together the dilemma over Rao is bound to rankle the Congress even after the next CWC meeting.
INTERVIEW: K. KARUNAKARAN
Power has made Rao arrogant
It was past 11 at night when he cut his birthday cake, on turning 78, recently. The late hour was typical of the man. The advancing years have in no way curtailed his zest for work, stretching each day into the late hours. The morning after the celebration, Karunakaran spoke to THE WEEK at length on national and state politics at his daughter Padmaja’s house in Ernakulam.
Excerpts:
QUESTION: The Congress is facing its worst-ever crisis. With whom does the responsibility for this lie?
ANSWER: Both the organisation and the leadership are responsible for this. Especially the party leadership, including party president P.V. Narasimha Rao. The top leadership has not been efficient enough in gaining the confidence of all party workers.
What is your proposal for the party to tide over this crisis?
The party can be strengthened by the return of all those leaders and workers who at various times in the past have gone out of the party. All anti-communal forces and the Congress leaders who have left the party should come under the banner of the Congress party. This is vital not only for the party but also for the smooth progress of the country.

However, the present leadership of the party is not able to instill confidence among these leaders and workers. So the leadership should change. The CWC president and the whole CWC, too, should resign their posts.
In that case who should be elected party president? Are you yourself inclined for it? No. I have already made it clear. A person from the north should be elected party president in the present situation.
Right now the Prime Minister is from the south and so is the Vice-President. If a southerner is made the party president, too, it will lead to a heavy imbalance in regional consideration. A lot of Congressmen and even others could have the wrong notion that the party is tilting towards the south by ignoring the vast regions of the north.
So you won’t accept A.K. Antony who seems to be in the reckoning for party presidentship?
It is not a question of not accepting Antony. It is a national perspective which determines my choice.
Then do Sharad Pawar and Pranab Mukherjee fit the bill?
No, I don’t think they can carry the north Indian perception which I regard important for the party and the country. It should be someone from the Hindi belt.
Could it be Rajesh Pilot or leaders like Scindia, N.D. Tiwari or Arjun Singh?
Right now I cannot reveal my choice. But I have a clear choice which I will reveal when the need arises. For the Congress, finding a leader even in the most difficult of situations is not a tough task. The vibrancy of the party ensures that there will emerge a leader at the right time even if that leader initially comes across as the least likely person. As in the case of Rao himself, who had all but retired at the time of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Even though initially all eyes were focused on Sonia, I was of the opinion that a widow coming out so actively in the public arena so soon after the death of her husband would be something very difficult for many Indians to accept. With her foreign background too, at that time she would have been an unacceptable choice to many party workers and Indians. Thus Rao emerged. So will another person, this time too.
However, even if those leaders who have left the party, and whom you mentioned, return, making one of them the party president may not be acceptable to many Congressmen. It will require some time for them to be widely acceptable in the party.
Rao and you were very close to each other earlier. What really caused the alienation?
The problem with Rao is that after some time in power he became very arrogant. Though his reign as Prime Minister was generally good, his functioning as party president has really been a disaster. On all party matters, he and a few persons around him took the decisions without consulting others, including senior leaders like me; his non-consultative approach has weakened the party machinery.
On many vital political strategies, he ignored the views of other leaders and plunged into blunders. For example, I was of the opinion that given the changed realities, we should pursue a single-party government at the Centre and a coalition approach in many of the states. In states like Tamil Nadu and UP, the Congress had become weak and needed to be strengthened by aligning with like-minded parties. But Rao was unmindful of this and as a result the Congress suffered heavily in the last elections. At the expense of the Congress, the BJP, which is to be fought most vigilantly, has been gaining.
Wasn’t your removal from the chief ministership of Kerala, too, a major factor in the strained relations between you and Rao?
Well, at that time when there was the demand that I step down I did so. Rao who became inclined to my resignation, following the allegations over the ISRO spy scandal, is now unwilling to step down when more severe allegations have been hurled at him. In fact, they are not mere allegations but a host of scandals in which the investigative agencies and the judiciary have implicated either him or his immediate family members. The urea scam, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case and now the Lakhubhai Pathak case.
This is the first time the president of a major party, and that too an ex-prime minister, is been held prima facie guilty by a court.
Whether or not Rao is guilty, he should have resigned from the party presidentship after the adverse judicial observation against him, upholding the high political traditions of the Congress. Such a step would have been welcomed by almost all Congressmen. Remember, it was Rao who denied tickets to all those leaders and ministers who were even remotely mentioned in the hawala racket. Surely, the same moral uprightness which he applied then should be binding on him now.
In my own case, twice I resigned from the chief ministership--in 1977 following the Rajan case and last year--though on both occasions my stand has been proved right.
Do you think pressure from the Congress’s top leadership on the Christian leaders caused your defeat in the elections?
Everyone knows the facts. However, it was not the entire community but a section of it that worked against me because of outside pressure. My stance on organisational matters, and my achievements as Union industries minister have not been to the liking of some at the top. So some of them wanted to ensure my defeat.
Hasn’t the fax message that PCC joint-secretary N. Venugopal sent to Rao to check on your membership in the AICC and CWC weakened your position in the party?
That fax message has not created the slightest problem for me. First of all, the present AICC and CWC are only ad hoc arrangements; their actual terms expired long ago. Hence there is no question of invalidation of membership. The argument that I ceased to be an AICC member, and so of the CWC, when I quit chief ministership is not correct. When I quit the chief ministership and later on the legislature party leadership, an arrangement had been reached with mediators Moopanar and Solanki that in exchange for the leadership here, Antony would offer his membership in these bodies to me.
But Antony has stated that he was not aware of any such exchange of membership.
Antony may not have been aware of it. In fact, he need not have been aware of it at all as it was the mediators who made the arrangement. So there is no substance in this fax message controversy. For 60 years I have been a Congressman, and for 28 or 29 years I have been the party’s leader in the state. I am quite sure there is no one else with this kind of record in the party. And they want to question my membership.
Venugopal, who has made this move against you, was once part of your inner circle....
Actually, the types of Venugopal don’t deserve comment. I know those who have always stood by me and those who haven’t. Who knows this Venugopal outside Ernakulam?
Some reports suggest that M.I. Shahnawaz, who too was once in your inner circle, had masterminded this operation.
(Smiles.) Does anyone have a doubt who masterminded this? It is he who has carried it out. But everyone knows who are Shahnawaz, Venugopal and others who are now working against me. They were non-entities and it is not even correct to say that I encouraged their growth in the party. These characters just hitched themselves on to my circle and tried to project themselves as big guys but failed. All that these elements brought to me was sheer bad reputation.
Since the Lok Sabha elections, your position in the state seems to have weakened considerably with many prominent members of your faction switching over to the rival camp.
Those who have always stood by me are with me and it is only those who had always been against me who have gone out. My faction has not weakened.
Many of those who have deserted you say that you were trying to foist your son, K. Muralidharan, as the faction leader.
There is no need to foist Murali as the leader on anybody. He can be a leader on his own. Those who make such allegations are doing so just to cover up their political immorality.
There is a strong perception that infighting in the Congress cost the UDF dearly in the last elections?
To an extent it is right. My calculation was that however deep the rivalry is, once the polls come, all Congressmen would stand together. But that calculation went wrong. There is no harm in the existence of groups per se, but when it comes to a common crisis, all should stand unitedly.
What do you think you can do to bring about such unity?
(Smiles.) I am keeping away from state politics. It is for those who remain here to strive for unity.
Is Antony giving the right leadership in the effective functioning of the UDF as an opposition?
I do not want to comment on it.
In the event of the Congress getting a new leadership, will it affect the coalition at the Centre?
No. I don’t see any immediate change in the coalition government. But I am of the firm opinion that a coalition government at the Centre is not conducive for the stability and progress of the country. Only a single party government can be effective at the Centre. The present coalition is not likely to last very long and is bound to collapse because of its own internal pressures. However, as long as it moves on the right policy track we will support it. But the moment we perceive it going off track, we will oppose it.
--VINU ABRAHAM
Axe on fax
He takes pride in his 60-year association with the Congress, 29 of these as the leader of the party in Kerala after having risen from the ranks. Perhaps why K. Karunakaran, 78, is better known as ‘leader’ in his home state. Now, the ‘leader’, befitting his status as one of the seniormost leaders of the Congress, is seeking to expand his reach and influence to the national level.

Striking back: N. Venugopal 		A fax message from Kerala to the party president, questioning his AICC membership, did shake him a bit, but he survived to stay in the fight against Rao. The fax, from PCC joint-secretary N. Venugopal, suggested that once Karunakaran had stepped down as Kerala chief minister he had automatically lost his AICC membership and that of the CWC. And Karunakaran’s days seemed numbered, considering the speed with which action was initiated on the message.
Says M.I. Shahnawaz, once a Karunakaran crony but now his bitter critic: "Under Article 13 (a)(d) of the party constitution, the leader of the legislature party automatically becomes a member of the AICC.
But in 1995 Karunakaran was removed from the chief ministerhip and the legislature party leadership and A.K. Antony was installed in the posts. As for his membership in the CWC, he had been nominated by Rao. But the party constitution stipulates that nominated members should get elected within six months. Since that has not happened, his CWC membership is not valid."
Shahnawaz pooh-poohs Karunakaran’s claim that he had, under an agreement with mediators Moopanar and Solanki, exchanged his leadership of the legislature party with Antony’s AICC membership. "Article 26 of the party constitution makes it clear that there cannot be any exchange of the AICC membership. Besides, Antony has asserted that he knows nothing about such an exchange."

The orchestrator: M.I. Shahnawaz 		Shahnawaz, who had been expelled from general secretaryship of the KPCC by Karunakaran on disciplinary grounds, is believed to be the brain behind Venugopal’s fax. Says he: "It was by pointing to the constitution that Karunakaran ousted me as KPCC general secretary. Now it is his turn to learn the constitution."
But why did they wait for a year and half, after Karunakaran stepped down as chief minister, to question his AICC membership? Says Venugopal: "First, he is a senior leader and we felt he should not be exposed to such a predicament. But in recent times Karunakaran was increasingly resorting to constitutional technicalities to back up his statements, to the detriment of the party. So we felt that he alone should not be the interpretor of the party constitution."
According to the two, they decided not to press the matter once Antony made it clear that a veteran leader like Karunakaran should not be subjected to a controversy over membership in party bodies. Adds Venugopal: "I do not wish to see any action taken against Karunakaran. He should only realise that the norms which he sets for others are applicable to him also."
--VA
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