Crisis in JD(U) Kerala unit as Sharad loyalist Veerendra Kumar decides to quit Rajya Sabha

JD(U) Kerala MP Veerendra Kumar. (iemalayalam)

JD(U) Kerala president MP Veerendra Kumar announced Wednesday that he will resign from his Rajya Sabha post, spiraling the party’s Kerala unit into a fresh crisis.

“I don’t wish to continue as a Rajya Sabha MP under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. I have conveyed this to him. The date of resignation is a technical one,” the veteran MP told reporters in Kozhikode.

When Nitish Kumar decided to split from the ‘Mahagadhbandhan’ alliance in Bihar and join hands with the BJP, Veerendra Kumar had publicly said that he cannot do the same in Kerala. He announced that his loyalties lay not with Nitish Kumar, but with Sharad Yadav. The JD(U) in Kerala is a part of the Congress-led UDF and it was the Congress that sent Veerendra Kumar to Rajya Sabha.

After the Election Commission bestowed Nitish Kumar’s faction with the ownership of the party’s ‘arrow’ symbol, Veerendra Kumar was thrown into a fix. He earlier told indianexpress.com that the party’s state committee will meet soon to decide the future course of action.

Resuscitate the old SJD?

Sheikh P Harris, secretary general of JD(U), told IndianExpress.com that the state committee, which will meet in the second week of December, will deliberate whether to resuscitate the old Socialist Janata Democratic (SJD), of which they were a part previously. The SJD had merged with the JD(U) after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“We are seriously discussing whether we should revive the SJD,” he said.

Veerendra Kumar had said in the press conference today that it was a ‘mistake’ to merge SJD with JD(U) and that it would have been better to remain in the old party.

Merge with JD(S) and join LDF?

There are also reports doing the rounds that the faction led by Veerendra Kumar could merge with the Janata Dal (Secular) and join the CPM-led LDF.

But Harris strongly denied that the party would have any association with JD(S).

“K Krishnankutty and CK Nanu of the JD(S) have been in unofficial talks with Veerendra Kumar for some time now. They want all the Socialist factions to unite and join the CPM-led LDF. We haven’t discussed officially but I can tell you that there is no chance our unit led by Veerendra Kumar will merge with JD(S). The feeling within the party that is that there is no need to merge with JD(S),” he told IndianExpress.com.

JD(U) leaders don’t want to take any risk especially with upcoming elections in Karnataka. Since the JD(S) has allied with the BJP before, JD(U) leaders in Kerala are not in favour of any tie-up. In Kerala however, the JD(S) is a part of the LDF government with Mathew T Thomas, its MLA, functioning as the minister for water resources.

Veerendra Kumar’s see-saw politics

Veerendra Kumar, considered as one of the most senior Socialist politicians in the country, presides over Mathrubhumi, one of the state’s prominent Malayalam newspapers, as its managing director. Kumar, who has authored several books in Malayalam, has been a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi and Vayalar awards.

With significant clout in the northern Malabar districts, Veerendra Kumar’s politics have swerved between the LDF and the UDF.

As the leader of the SJD, Kumar was with the CPM-led LDF for a long period until 2009. He won twice from the Kozhikode Lok Sabha constituency, first in 1996 and then in 2004. He served as the MoS for Finance in the UPA administration.

But in 2009, following differences with the CPM state leadership, Kumar parted ways and joined hands with Congress-led UDF. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Kumar demanded either the Vadakara or the Kozhikode Lok Sabha seats but was denied both. He was instead offered the Palakkad constituency, considered a CPM pocket borough. That election, Kumar lost to MB Rajesh of the CPM by a whopping margin of more than 1 lakh votes. However, in a bid to placate him, the Congress gave support to send him to the Upper House.

If Kumar intends to return to the LDF, he will have to first, get past his own party’s opposition and then mend fences with CPM leadership.