Thiruvananthapuram: Former KPCC president K Muraleedharan has given clear indications that the Congress party will not use the ISRO spy case to unleash a fresh round of group rivalry in the state. An insurrection looked imminent when Muraleedharan's sister, K Padmaja, said soon after the Supreme Court verdict that five politicians were behind her father K Karunakaran's humiliating ouster from the post of chief minister in 1995. It is not rocket science to gather that the five politicians Padmaja was referring to were leaders of the A group of the Congress party, and the Muslim League, and Kerala Congress (Mani).

If at all Padmaja was giving a call to arms, her brother has now virtually quelled the incipient rebellion. “It was not group rivalry that had led to the removal of K Karunakaran as chief minister,” Muraleedharan told reporters here on Sunday. He said it was former prime minister Narasimha Rao alone who was responsible for Karunakaran's downfall. “My father has never told me that anyone other than Rao had betrayed him,” he said.

Muraleedharan also said that he was not interested in an internal discussion on the ISRO issue. “At the moment, the Congress party does not have the strength to withstand any divisions. Moreover, the elections are round the corner, and the Congress is expecting to make huge gains in Kerala,” he said.

Benign group wars

Muraleedharan nearly said that the group rivalry in the mid-nineties was not so vicious as to unseat a chief minister. “Group rivalry was not the issue. Initially, no one in the party had called for a change of leadership. They only asked that Karunakaran change his style of functioning,” Muraleedharan said. Even the UDF partners intervened very late, only after they found pubic opinion turning for the worse. “The UDF partners had always treated the group fight in the Congress as an internal issue of the Congress. But when the public mood changed, reflected in the unceasing boos that Karunakaran received at public functions after the spy scandal broke out, they stepped in,” Muraleedharan said.

He said that the UDF constituents took the stand that since the assembly elections were just 13 months away it would be difficult for the UDF to win if the public anger against the chief minister was so high. “But still, they insisted that Karunakaran should be given a fitting farewell. They wanted him to be accommodated in the central ministry, either as the deputy prime minister or given charge of an important ministry like defence,” he said. Only two UDF partners had said that Karunakaran need not step down: National Democratic Party of the NSS and MV Raghavan's CMP.

Rao's double game

Muraleedharan said that more than anyone in the state Congress it was Narasimha Rao who back-stabbed his father. “Rao could have easily solved the issue had he taken the initiative. Earlier, when both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were at the helm, there were demands to remove Karunakaran. But both had put their foot down,” he said. Instead, Rao played the double game.

Muraleedharan said that when he had met Rao, along with Congress leaders P C Chacko and K Krishnakumar, the prime minister had told him that Karunakaran need not resign. “As long as he has the majority, there was no reason for Karunakaran to step down,” is what Rao is said to have told the Congress leaders. Later Rao sent a fact-finding mission led by G K Moopanar to the state. “Moopanar met each MLA separately and reported that Karunakaran enjoyed the confidence of the MLAs,” he said.

The great betrayal

But on March 15, when the Parliament was in session, Moopanar sent word to Muraleedharan that he wanted to see him. He met the veteran at the Central Hall of the Parliament. “Moopanar said he wanted me to tell my father to resign. The prime minister insists on the resignation,” Muraleedharan said. He, along with other A Group leaders like Ramesh Chennithala and P C Chacko, met the prime minister. “He told us to tell Karunakaran to resign, and ask him to come to Delhi. Rao also told us that both he and Karunakaran would work out what to do next,” Muraleedharan said.

He called his father from the STD booth of the Parliament House. "I conveyed what the PM told me and his reaction was that Narasimha Rao has betrayed him," he said. "He has never told me about anybody else betraying him," he added.

That Rao was toying with Karunakaran was soon evident. “Though he won the Rajya Sabha elections, Rao made Karunakaran wait for three months before giving him a cabinet berth. And when he was given a cabinet berth, it was as minister of industries. But Rao also made sure that he kept the foreign investment wing of the industries ministry for himself,” Muraleedharan said.

The Supreme Court on Friday awarded Rs 50 lakh to former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan who was arrested in the 1994 espionage case. The scam also had its political fallout with a section in the Congress targeting then then Chief Minister Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation. Reacting to the top court's order, Padmaja, had said she was ready to depose before the panel, if summoned and reveal the names of people who were behind the case.

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