Padmaja Venugopal, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) general secretary and late Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran’s daughter, has signalled that she will soon join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Ms. Venugopal’s radical and unexpected change in political allegiance has caught the Congress party by surprise and accorded potent ammunition to the ruling Left Democratic Front and the BJP to pound the United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition on the Lok Sabha elections campaign trial.
It also did not help the Congress that Ms. Venugopal was a member of the party’s apex Political Affairs Committee (PAC).
Congress’s concern
Ms. Venugopal’s desertion from the Congress also raised concerns about whether it would, at least in some measure, subvert the credibility of the UDF’s, including the Indian Union Muslim League’s (IUML), strident anti-BJP messaging at the hustings.
Two high-profile defections from the Congress to the BJP in the past 11 months have stunned the KPCC and raised scepticism about the leadership’s ability to close ranks at the time of a pivotal national elections.
In April 2023, Congress Working Committee (CWC) member and former Kerala Chief Minister A.K. Antony’s son Anil K. Antony deserted the Congress to join the BJP. He is currently contesting on the BJP ticket from the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency.
The jury was out on whether the BJP would repeat the same pattern and consider Ms. Venugopal as a possible candidate from the Chalakudy Loka Sabha constituency to unsettle the Congress incumbent, Benny Behanan. The BJP had accorded the Chalakudy seat to the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), an NDA ally, which was yet to declare its candidate.
Ms. Venugopal, who is in New Delhi for discussions with the BJP’s national leadership, told a television news channel that she felt “singled out for humiliation” in the Congress.
Ms. Venugopal said she had been seething inwardly for three years since the KPCC “rewarded” a Congress leader “singularly responsible” for her failure by a wafer-thin margin of 900 votes in the Thrissur Assembly segment in 2016 elections with a top organisational post.
She alleged that Congress leaders had ganged up to put her down in the party’s organisational affairs. “They even banned my picture from appearing on party posters. They tried to ostracise me politically in Thrissur district”, she said.
Ms. Venugopal said KPCC president K. Sudhakaran was perhaps the only leader who showed her “some kindness and personal regard.”
Siblings cross swords
Ms. Venugopal scoffed at her brother and Congress leader K. Muraleedharan’s, MP, accusation that she had “betrayed the party.”
Ms. Venugopal said she had stood steadfastly with the Congress during the tumultuous years when her father and her brother split the Indian National Congress to form the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) (DIC(K)) in 2005.
Ms. Venugopal claimed that Mr. Muraleedharan had “lost the moral right” to criticise her politics and alleged that committed Congress workers still had misgivings of his past performance as “a political shapeshifter.”
“Mr. Muraleedharan had aligned the DIC(K) with the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF in the 2005 panchayat elections. He later shifted sides to partner with the UDF in the subsequent Assembly elections,” she said.
‘True political heir’
Ms. Venugopal denied forsaking her father’s stridently anti-Sangh Parivar political legacy. She said Karunakaran was “more anti-LDF than anti-BJP.”
“The BJP was a non-entity in Kerala politics during Karunakaran’s heyday. Hence, he always reckoned the LDF as the prime enemy. My father bequeathed his strident anti-LDF politics to me. I am his true political heir”, she claimed.
Ms. Venugopal also reminded her critics that Karunakaran had floated the DIC(K) after being slighted repeatedly by the Congress leadership. “I faced the same predicament and made my choice. Indeed, the Congress pushed me into the BJP”, she added.
Congress rallies against Padmaja
Ms. Venugopal’s firm repudiation of the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls drew sharp and sarcastic criticism from the party leadership.
Mr. Muraleedharan said Ms. Venugopal had betrayed the party and callously abandoned her father’s political legacy at a critical juncture.
“She has besmirched her father’s memory. Karunakaran would never brook Sangh Parivar activists striding around at his final resting place”, he said.
Mr. Muraleedharan alleged that the Congress had repeatedly favoured Ms. Venugopal despite her “brand of work-from-home” politics.
He alleged that Ms. Venugopal has “rarely entered the pavements, delivered pamphlets, or attended public rallies” and would not bring any dividend to the BJP.
Mr. Muraleedharan said he had severed his relationship with his sister. “I will never meet her again as a sibling”, he added.
Kerala Pradesh Mahila Congress president Bindu Krishna alleged that the Central government had used the “threat” of a possible Enforcement Directorate (ED) enquiry to arm-twist Ms. Venugopal into joining the BJP.
Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala, T.N. Prathapan, MP, and Youth Congress State president Rahul Mamkootathil slammed Ms. Venugopal’s desertion.
She also came under severe criticism on pro-Congress social media handles.
