The controversy and tensions within the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) kicked up by the allegations levelled against party national general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty by a scion of the Panakkad Sayed Shihab family appears to be dying down.
But the issue has yet again exposed the fact that many in the first and second rung leadership of the party are harbouring ill-will towards Mr. Kunhalikutty.
When IUML State president Sayed Hyderali Shihab Thangal’s son Sayed Mueen Ali Shihab attacked Mr. Kunhalikutty at a press meet in Kozhikode the other day in connection with a money laundering case against the party organ Chandrika, it rekindled the embers within and outside the party.
Like a bolt from the blue, it struck the IUML top leadership, which was virtually and unprecedentedly shushed for a couple of days. The issue energised Kunhalikutty-baiters in the party and helped revive, at least temporarily, their past link with foes such as K.T. Jaleel.
If it was an opportunity for Mr. Jaleel to avenge the exit he had as a minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan government, Mr. Mueen Ali’s allegations gave a shot in the arm for IUML’s anti-Kunhalikutty group. However, none in that faction had the guts to speak out against Mr. Kunhalikutty.
They hush-hushed and spoke off the record, saying that Mr. Kunhalikutty was behaving as though the party was his private enterprise and that his was the last word in the party.
But the fact remains that for the vast majority of IUML leaders and cadres, Mr. Kunhalikutty is an undisputed and ‘complete’ leader who time and again skippered the party and its machinery through difficult circumstances. He is the de-facto skipper of the IUML, though none calls him so.
Mr. Kunhalikutty is affable and liberal; yet he has a shrewd way of getting things done for the party.
Everyone knows in the IUML that it was Mr. Kunhalikutty who buttressed the party mouthpiece Chandrika when it tottered in financial crunch in the past two decades.
Whenever the party faced a crisis, Mr. Kunhalikutty showed his diplomacy and finesse to help the IUML circumvent it. The party largely owes it to Mr. Kunhalikutty for the nourishment the IUML witnessed since 2006.
Although it was Mr. Kunhalikutty who steered the party to a dignified level of success in the civic body elections, he was at the receiving end for the setbacks in the Assembly elections.
He was vehemently attacked by his detractors first for quitting the Assembly to go to the Lok Sabha, and then relinquishing Parliament to come back to the Assembly.
