Malappuram district convener of the United Democratic Front (UDF) P.T. Ajay Mohan expressed his displeasure at the nomination of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) district secretary P. Abdul Hameed, MLA, to the director board of Kerala Bank.
Addressing the media in Malappuram on Monday, Mr. Ajay Mohan said that the UDF workers in the district were widely disappointed at the IUML leader accepting the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s nomination.
He said they had conveyed the disappointment to the UDF State leadership.
Mr. Ajay Mohan said that out of the 98 cooperative banks under UDF control in Malappuram district, 96 had cooperated with the UDF’s legal fight against the merger of district cooperative banks with Kerala Bank. He said Pattikkad Service Cooperative Bank, of which Mr. Hameed is the president, was one of the two banks that did not cooperate with the UDF in its legal fight against the LDF government action.
However, he did not comment about the non-cooperation of Pattikkad Service Cooperative Bank.
IUML stance
The IUML leaders, including its national general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty and Mr. Hameed, justified the nomination of the party candidate. Mr. Hameed said that there was nothing new in it, and that he had been nominated earlier too when the LDF was in power.
Mr. Kunhalikutty said that Kerala Bank director’s post was the right and privilege of the IUML, and that it was not any largesse or offer of the LDF. “Most cooperative banks in Malappuram district are in our hands. And, therefore, it is our right to get a nominee from the district,” he said.
Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] central committee member and former Minister A.K. Balan said that the IUML had not been invited to the LDF. Talking to newspersons in Palakkad, Mr. Balan said that the IUML had no plans to quit the UDF and that the CPI(M) never invited it, though the Muslim League had displayed some soft feelings during the Palestine rally taken out by the CPI(M).
IUML State president Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal too reiterated that the party had no intentions to desert the UDF. He said in Wayanad that the IUML would do everything possible not only to strengthen the UDF, but also to defeat the LDF in the upcoming elections.
