Two UDF legislators resign ahead of Kerala polls

Thiruvananthapuram, March 19 Two days after the Kerala Congress (M) faction led by senior leader P.J. Joseph and former Union Minister P.C. Thomas' Kerala Congress decided to merge into a single entity 'Kerala Congress', the former and his colleague Mons Joseph, both sitting UDF legislators, on Friday resigned ahead of the forthcoming polls.

The resignation comes at a time when both of them agreed to contest the April 6 Assembly elections. Besides, the legal advice that they had received was that in order to avoid any future complications, it would be better if they quit and submit their nominations.

However Joseph told the media that their decision to resign was done to ensure more transparency.

It was on Wednesday when Thomas who was willing to return to the Congress-led UDF through the party spearheaded by Joseph, decided that it was mutually beneficial for both of them to come under the name of the Kerala Congress party, which was formed by his father P.T. Chacko in the mid 60s.

Thomas' party Kerala Congress last month had returned to be a part of the BJP-led NDA and was also seen among the leaders ahead of the state-wide yatra helmed by state BJP chief K. Surendran.

But, Thomas had rather decided to opt out of the NDA.

The reason behind Joseph's decision to take Thomas along with him was because despite repeated legal efforts to get the 'two leaves' symbol, which has been allotted to the faction of the Kerala Congress (M) led by Jose K. Mani, whose party is now an ally of the CPI-M led Left Democratic Front, Joseph was left stranded, after various courts ruled in favour of Jose K. Mani, who was given the 'two leaves' symbol.

Thomas represented the Muvattupuzha Lok Sabha constituency between 1989 and 2009.

In 2003, he became Union Minister of State for Law in the Vajpayee cabinet and in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls he won as an NDA candidate from his home turf.

But after 2009, he has been moving from one political front to the other, and finally he is all set to return to his original fold and thereby he will now be a UDF leader.

Now, the question remains whether the two leaders will get a proper symbol for them to contest for the polls, who were allotted 10 seats by the Congress-led UDF.

( With inputs from IANS )