Kerala Opposition Leader says P.V. Anvar’s Malayora Jatha participation not a ‘permanent safe harbour’ in UDF

Kerala's Opposition Leader discusses AITMC's participation in UDF campaign, highlighting potential alliance and political implications.

Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan has said All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) State convener P.V. Anvar’s participation in the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) Malayora Jatha campaign in Nilambur did not entail that the Opposition alliance had offered him “a permanent safe harbour.”

Speaking to reporters in Malappuram on Thursday (January 30), Mr. Satheesan said: “We have neither slammed the door on Anvar nor opened it. The UDF will take a call after detailed discussions between allies.”

Mr. Satheesan said Mr. Anvar had for long represented the Nilambur Assembly constituency. Hence, political propriety demanded that he join the mass and politically non-partisan campaign to highlight existential issues vexing the vast settler-farmer community.

The Malayora Jatha seeks to highlight the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s alleged apathy towards worsening human-wild animal conflict, plummeting crop prices, raids on farmlands by marauding wild elephants and feral boars and towards the State’s vast rural community.

Earlier, Mr. Anvar had offered unconditional support for the UDF in the upcoming Nilambur Assembly byelection and rolled back his initial opposition to fielding Congress leader Aryadan Shoukath as the Opposition’s candidate in the constituency he had vacated after acrimoniously breaking ranks with the LDF.

However, a Congress insider said the UDF has yet to decide whether to accommodate Mr. Anvar’s TMC as an alliance, given the party’s “wavering equations” with the TMC in West Bengal. Hence, the All India Congress Committee would have a decisive say. 

Moreover, he said the outcome of the Nilambur Assembly byelection might have a bearing on Mr. Anvar’s prospects in the UDF.