The upshot of the unrelenting strife has been that the UDF is now literally teetering on the brink. A daylong stocktaking session of the high-power UDF Committee, held in the salubrious climes of Kovalam, a picturesque tourist spot of Kerala, has done precious little to calm tempers and soothe jagged nerves. Like the proverbial Bourbons, the bickering partners of the ruling coalition have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.

The Congress-led UDF has only itself to blame for the mess in which the front has landed. While the Congress must take the major share of the blame, the allies, especially the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and the Kerala Congress (Mani) are also responsible for the UDF becoming a house divided against itself.

A dominant feature of the Kovalam conclave was the hardening of the stance by both IUML and the KC(M). Both the parties took the opportunity to vent their spleen on ‘big brother’ Congress. If the IUML was upset at being persecuted by a section of the Congress, the KC(M) was peeved at being denied a berth in the Union Cabinet. So angry were the duo that they threatened, at one stage, to quit the government and support it from outside!

It was an amusing sight to see the IUML, whose various acts of omission and commission, contributed in no small measure to the current crisis, putting on an air of injured innocence! We are being singled out for criticism and isolated – something that has not happened for the last forty years. That was the refrain of the IUML leaders, who were breathing fire and brimstone till the other day. And if the Congress leaders who were targeting the IUML do not mend their ways, the party would rather remain outside the front than be a part of it, they intoned. It was an effective display, with a touch of drama, of the policy of attack being the best defence.

A chastened Congress lost no time in initiating damage control. IUML won’t be isolated or singled out for unfair criticism, the Congress assured the ally. It clamped, in the process, a virtual ban on leaders making anti-IUML statements. That the directive has had no impact is a different matter altogether. Congress leaders, including K Muralidharan, MLA, continue to make anti-IUML and anti-Congress statements on the ground that they no longer have access to party forums to ventilate their grievances! He has a point as neither the Political Affairs committee nor the KPCC executive have met for several months.

Significantly, only KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala had the courage to look IUML leaders in the eye and do some plain speaking. The IUML leaders must indulge in introspection, asserted Ramesh, if criticism against the party is growing. It simply won’t do for that party to blame the Congress alone for the unhappy state of affairs, he opined. It was a refreshing change from the usually mealy-mouthed response of the state Congress leaders to IUML criticism.

But the single biggest factor which is encouraging the IUML in particular and the KC(M) and other allies in general to resort to brinkmanship has been Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s reluctance to speak out when he must. True, a chief minister leading a coalition government has to walk the tightrope an exercise that taxes patience. But a CM who refuses to assert his position even in the face of extreme provocation cannot command respect. It is this Hamletesque dilemma of Chandy which the coalition partners like the IUML and KC(M) have exploited mercilessly. What Chandy and his loyalists believe to be his strength is, ironically, his weakness, too. The CM’s failure to discipline the ‘errant boys’ as the captain of the team has badly damaged the credibility of the Congress. Even a section of the Congress leaders is unhappy about what they regard as the ‘abject surrender’ to the whims and caprices of an aggressive IUML.

Among the leaders who have benefited the most from the CM’s ‘monumental patience’ has been, the chief whip of the coalition, P C George, who belongs to the KC(M). The chief whip who is supposed to calm ruffled tempers and ensure smooth functioning of the coalition government, has, time and again, aggravated tensions with his thoughtless and uncharitable remarks and statements. And the Chief Minister, who must frown upon such ‘anti-coalition activities, is a mute spectator to the sordid goings on.

The Kovalam conclave has, of course, given a call for an immediate halt to the hostilities and constant sniping among the coalition constituents. But it is, at best, an uneasy truce, which would collapse at the slightest provocation. Can the UDF arrest the inexorable march to disaster? The UDF leaders cannot say that they have not been forewarned. (IPA Service)