This is a ‘do or die election’ on the idea of India, says Congress veteran A.K. Antony

A.K. Antony calls Lok Sabha polls a "do or die election" to determine the future of India.

Veteran Congress leader A.K. Antony on Tuesday called the Lok Sabha polls a “do or die election’ that will “decide whether the idea of India should exist”, and said that if his health permits, he will campaign for United Democratic Front (UDF) candidates, including against his son who is a BJP candidate.

“Everything will depend on my health condition,” Mr. Antony told reporters here when asked whether he would go to Pathanamthitta to campaign for the UDF candidate in the Lok Sabha polls.

The pointed query was posed to the veteran leader as his son Anil K. Antony is being fielded by the BJP in the Pathanamthitta constituency, where he is challenging sitting UDF MP Anto Antony, and the ruling LDF candidate, senior CPI(M) leader and former Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac.

Mr. Anil had joined the BJP in April last year after quitting the Congress, criticising the party’s stand on the controversial documentary film of the BBC on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr. Modi had visited Pathanamthitta last week to campaign for Anil.

Mr. Antony, who is the former Chief Minister of Kerala and the longest-serving Defence Minister of the country, is currently living life away from politics in his home in the Kerala capital.

Having refrained from active politics for the last two years due to age-related factors, the veteran leader said he had ventured out of Thiruvananthapuram only twice for political purposes — to campaign for the Congress’s Uma Thomas and Chandy Oommen (late Congress stalwart Oommen Chandy’s son) when they contested the Assembly byelections in the Thrikkakara and Puthuppally constituencies, respectively.