Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 18 (IANS) Former state Congress president K. Muraleedharan Wednesday threatened to go on a fast unto death in Kerala if he is not taken back into the party by March 8 next year.
‘I have decided that if I am not taken back into the party latest by March 8 next year, then I will go on fast unto death in front of the state party headquarters here,’ Muraleedharan, who once held sway in the state Congress, told reporters.
Muraleedharan’s threat comes a day after his father, four-time chief minister K. Karunakaran, lashed out at the party saying that it is a shame that the state leadership is getting ready to fight the polls but is yet to complete the organizational elections.
The father-son duo had walked out of the Congress in 2005 and formed the Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran. A year later, they merged the party with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
When this gamble failed to pay off, Karunakaran, much against the wishes of his son, admitted he was wrong in leaving the Congress and got the nod from Sonia Gandhi to return in December 2007.
Muraleedharan, however, remained as the Kerala president of the NCP.
Last year, Muraleedharan quit the NCP and has since been eyeing a return to the Congress, but with no success.
Muraleedharan is miffed as former Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Lok Sabha member S. Sivaraman was given Congress membership last week and another former CPI-M MP K.S. Manoj is slated to get entry into the party later this week at Alappuzha.
Two times in the past year, the state executive of the Congress decided Muraleedharan need not be re-admitted.
Muraleedharan’s expulsion from the Congress ends March 8, 2011. He expects that he would get an automatic entry into the party, but the state leadership does not want him until the completion of the assembly polls in May next year.
