Trouble for LDF as Kerala Congress stakes claim for a Rajya Sabha seat

July 1, 2024, could test the cohesiveness of the Left Democratic Front. On that day, the six-year tenure of three LDF Rajya Sabha MPs -- Binoy Viswam (CPI), Elamaram Kareem (CPM) and Jose K Mani (Kerala Congress) -- will end.
Given its strength in the Kerala legislative Assembly, the LDF can send only two of its candidates to the Rajya Sabha. The third will be taken over by the UDF.

That CPM will retain its seat is a certainty. It is the second seat that will throw up a dilemma for the LDF. Already, the Kerala Congress (Mani) had openly staked claim for the seat. "Jose K Mani is representing the party as MP. So it is KC(M)'s seat," party state general secretary Stephen George said on Monday. "I am sure the LDF will take an appropriate decision when the time comes," he said.

The CPI, though it has desisted from making any public comments, considers retaining the Rajya Sabha seat now held by Binoy Viswam as a prestige issue. "We are the second biggest party in the LDF and the seat is held by one of our senior leaders. We just cannot let it be usurped by a party that had came into the LDF just the other day," a top CPI leader said.

However, the KC(M) chairman Jose K Mani said on Monday that the time was not ripe for such discussions. "Such discussions are not be held publicly," Mani said after the party's steering committee meeting in Kottayam on Monday. "The issue has to be first discussed in the LDF, not in public. The party has a clear stand on the issue," Mani said. Like Stephen George, he too said that the CPM and the LDF would take the right decision.

The KC(M) stand is that the CPI has been given four Lok Sabha seats to contest in contrast with the lone seat (Kottayam) it was given. It has two Rajya Sabha seats, too. In addition to Binoy Viswam, there is P Sandosh Kumar whose tenure will end only on April 2, 2028. This imbalance, the KC(M) feels, could be made up by the granting it a Rajya Sabha seat.

The CPI finds this argument farcical for two reasons. One, it considers itself a far bigger party than the KC(M); it has 17 seats in the Assembly as opposed to KC(M)'s five. Two, the CPI wants permanent members in Delhi. In 2019, it had lost all the four Lok Sabha seats it had contested. The lone Rajya Sabha seat was its only presence in Delhi. In fact, since 2004, when it had won three seats, the CPI had not won a single Lok Sabha seat.

If at all the CPI agrees to part with the Rajya Sabha seat, insiders say that it could happen only if the party wins at least two of the seats it had contested. If the CPI wins at least two and the KC(M) loses Kottyam, a top CPM leader said that the KC(M) would lose its Rajya Sabha claim. "A strengthened CPI cannot be ignored," the CPM leader said.

But if the KC(M) retains Kottayam and the CPI loses all its four Lok Sabha contests, it could be advantage Mani.

Apart from the three whose terms will end on July 1, the other Rajya Sabha MPs from Kerala are: AA Rahim (CPM), V Sivadasan (CPM), John Brittas (CPM), P Sandosh Kumar (CPI), Jebi Mather (Congress), and PV Abdul Wahab (Muslim League). The terms of Wahab, Sivadasan and Brittas will end on April 20, 2027. Along with Sandosh, Rahim and Mather will continue till April 2, 2028.