P.V. Anvar (centre) with Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and IUML leader P.K. Kunhalikutty at the UDF’s Malayora Jatha in Malappuram on January 30, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
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.
He noted that the IUML and other UDF partners had not given Mr. Anvar’s quest for inclusion in the Opposition alliance a green signal despite signalling a thaw in the protracted frosty relations with the politician.
Mr. Anvar had earlier called on IUML State president Syed Hyder Ali Shihab Thangal at the latter’s house in Palakkad, ostensibly to make amends for his past criticism of the party’s leadership. He had also attempted to build bridges with other alliance partners and Congress’ State leadership.
TMC meeting
Meanwhile, V.S. Manoj Kumar, TMC’s Kerala State coordinator, told The Hindu that the party rapidly enrolled members of Mr. Anvar’s initial Democratic Movement of Kerala (DMK) into the organisation’s State membership roles.
He said the TMC’s State leadership would convene in Thiruvananthapuram on February 3 to streamline the organisation’s hierarchy, decide office-bearers and distribute political responsibilities ahead of the impending Assembly byelection in Nilambur and local body elections.
Mr. Manoj said the TMC had conducted organisational-level conferences in Kozhikode, Wayanad, Ernakulam, and Palakkad districts and nominated party coordinators for the districts and their respective Assembly constituencies.
Published – January 30, 2025 02:25 pm IST