Ebrahimkunju’s political growth has even surprised party’s workers in Malappuram; Known as confidante of Kunhalikutty, his fall creates another row in Muslim League

KOCHI: Party leader V K Ebrahimkunju’s arrest over Palarivattom flyover graft case, which was followed by MLA Kamaruddin’s arrest in Jewellery scam has further spiked the rising heartbeats of Muslim League’s leaders. League’s leadership knows the next one to behind bars will be KM Shaji on the plus two seat bribes case. This realisation is pulling back the party from raising more allegations against the government, which bears the taint of several graft cases. This is the first time in the history of the party, that League has got into such a grave crisis.

Even though senior leaders like M K Munner and Nalakath Soopy have also faced graft allegations, but no Muslim League leader has faced such serious allegations as raised against Ebrahimkunju. Sources in the party say that Kunjalikutty is disturbed with the arrest of both leaders as the duo were his closest confidantes. Kunhalikutty who was gearing up to take over the party’s election affairs in Kerala will have to deal with the daunting task of leading the party in this poll season in the wake of the arrest of his confidantes.

Ebrahimkunju was the only choice of the party in Kochi region when it comes to assembly polls and it reveals his influence in the Muslim League. In 2005, when the ice cream case controversy reached further levels, Kunhalikutty was forced to resign from ministership but even at that time, he selected Ebrahimkunju, to continue the rest of the term as minister of his portfolio, who was only a one time MLA back then. Appointing a non-Malappuram native as minister was a surprising move for many leaders in the party.

In 2011, during the tenure of Oommen Chandy ministry, Ebrahimkunju was chosen to head PWD ministry ignoring many other deserving leaders in the party. At that time, Ebrahimkunju became minister with the support of Kunhalikutty and Panakkad family. Kunjalikutty also didn’t forget to sideline M K Munner by dividing local bodies ministry into three.

Ebrahimkunju who went to become a major power centre of the party outside Malabar became a well-known minister in the then UDF ministry. He even got the ‘best minister’ award from a private news channel. However, party leaders have always filed objections against the minister’s decisions in party forums, most of them were about the construction of roads and bridges in the state.

Ebrahimkunju grew up as the prominent face of the party, through his trade union activities among the factory workers in Kochi’s industrial areas via MSF and Youth League. The party always preferred Ebrahimkunju after ignoring leaders like Ahammed Kabeer who have strong ideological base.

On a quick glance, here the wounded party is League but the graft allegation pertains to the UDF’s ministry’s rule from 2011-2016. Therefore, UDF leaders also share a pie of the allegations. Meanwhile, the probe against K M Shaji will further raise the concerns of party leaders, especially at a time when local body polls are around the corner.