NCP leaders to meet Karunakaran today

Five top leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from the district will meet senior leader K. Karunakaran in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. The meeting with Mr. Karunakaran comes close on the heels of NCP State president K. Muraleedharan visiting Kollam on Thursday to try and stump a mass exodus from the NCP to the Congress. The NCP leadership fears that the party will lose its strength in Kollam when Mr. Karunakaran returns to the Congress.


A close confidant of Mr. Karunakaran said that 80 per cent of the NCP leaders and cadres from the district will follow Mr. Karunakaran to the Congress. He said that they include eight district committee office-bearers of the party, nine block committee presidents, many State committee members and several leaders of the party’s feeder organisations.


Meanwhile, there are strong differences of opinion within the district unit of the Congress on endorsing the return of K. Karunakaran Pillai, who is NCP’s State secretary. Before joining the DIC(K), Mr. Pillai was the DCC vice-president.


Congress sources said that Mr. Pillai’s calculations of returning to the Congress in the same capacity he holds in the NCP will be opposed. A powerful group from the district is working to ensure that Mr. Pillai is not even accommodated as a KPCC executive committee member from the district.