Thiruvananthapuram, March 20 (BPNS)
The Opposition UDF in Kerala is gripped with controversy after the constituent partner of the Congress in the front, RSP has come out stating that the Kerala state woman Congress president Jabi Mather was fielded as Congress candidate through a payment process. RSP state secretary, A.A. Azeez while delivering the inaugural address of the student wing of the RSP, said that Jabi Mather got a payment seat.
It may be noted that of the 3 vacancies to the Rajya Sabha, the ruling left front can win two seats while the opposition UDF can win one seat according to the strength of MLAs in the legislative assembly.
In the Left front, the seats were taken by CPM and CPI while in UDF the seat was allocated to the Congress party. CPM nominated its youth wing all India president A.A.Raheeem while the CPI nominee was the former All India president of its youth wing, P. Santhoshkumar who is presently the Kannur district secretary of the CPI.
Congress allocated the seat to the state woman Congress president, Jabi Mather who is from a political family having deep roots in the state Congress. Her grandfather, T.O. Bava was the state president of the Congress party and her father K.M.A. Mather was the former state general secretary of the party and her brother Shafi Mather was the OSD to Oommen Chandy when he was the Chief Minister.
The statement of RSP state secretary was not taken lightly by the Congress and Kasargod MP of the party and senior leader, Rajmohan Unnithan lashed out against the RSP state secretary and said that he was planning to cross over to the LDF. He said that stringent action must be taken against Azeez and added that the party should legally move against the RSP state secretary.
Meanwhile, Azeez while speaking to reporters at Thiruvananthapuram said that his statement was misinterpreted and said that he had not said that Jebi Mather’s was a payment seat.
There were criticisms from within the Congress party also that Jebi Mather was given the RS seat after AICC general secretary (Organisation), K.C. Venugopal had taken special interest to accommodate her.
It is to be noted that Jabi Mather is the first woman representative from the state Congress nominated to the Rajya Sabha after a period of 42 years. It was veteran leader, Late Leela Damodara Menon who was nominated to Rajya Sabha by the Congress party four decades ago. Jabi has the added advantage of being from the minority Muslim community and with Muslim community showing their allegiance to the CPM and Pinarayi Vijayan, Congress had to nominate a woman Muslim as its Rajya Sabha candidate.
