The Indian National Congress on Saturday made a public genuflection in front of the Muslim League by openly declaring that the grand old party would not use its flag during the election campaign in Wayanad from where Rahul Gandhi is seeking reelection in the Lok Sabha poll.
This has been one of the preconditions set by the Muslim League for its support to the Nehru-Gandhi scion.
The announcement that the Congress would not be using the party flag at Wayanad was made by M M Hassan, the president-in-charge of the KPCC on Saturday. “We will not use the party flag during election campaigning at Wayanad but we will use the emblem of the party. I am not able to explain more than this,” said Hassan.
When Rahul visited Wayanad to file his nomination papers, the absence of Congress flags was conspicuous during both the roadshow and the campaign rally. Wayanad is a Muslim-dominated area where the influence of the Islamist party permeates throughout the constituency.
When Jawaharlal Nehru, the great-grandfather of Rahul, visited Kerala during the early 1950s, he described the Muslim League as a dead horse.
By preventing the Congress from waving its flags at election rallies, the Muslim League is chuckling at the embarrassment it has caused the Congress.
Political commentators are of the view that this is a major setback to the Congress party. “During the 2011-2016 tenure of the UDF Government, the Muslim League had made the Congress to dance to its tunes and made the then Chief Minister Oommen Chandi to appoint a League nominee as fifth Minister though the initial agreement was to give four Ministries to the party,” said the commentator who did not want his name to be quoted.
Though the Congress is numerically stronger in the Legislative Assembly, it is the Muslim League which calls the shots in UDF. The League had demanded that it be given three seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the Congress had to do a lot to pacify and mollify the Islamic outfit. The Congress had assured the League that it would be allocated the next Rajya Sabha seat from the State.
To cover up the loss of face suffered by accepting the condition of the Muslim League, Hassan cursed Anil Antony, son of Congress veteran AK Antony, who is contesting from Pathanamthitta as BJP candidate. “He is the one who is ungrateful to his father and he can be described as the modern day Judas,” said Hassan.
