Local body polls: Muslim League to ally with parties outside UDF

Kozhikode: In a significant move, Indian Union Muslim League has resolved to ally with parties outside United Democratic Front (UDF) to ensure success in the upcoming local body polls.

The matter has been conveyed to the lower committees through a circular from the state committee.

The circular exhorts party units to ensure success in the polls by allying with parties or organizations that can cooperate and allows the lower committees to field public figures if found inevitable.  The circular also instructs the party forums to form public committees in the local bodies where the party has dim chance of victory. The party is eyeing victory at any cost.

The instruction to form public committees is learnt to be a tactic against CPM. The LDF had employed the same tactics in the regions with low prospects for the party in the 2015 local body polls. These allies, then mockingly dubbed by the Muslim League and other rivals of CPM as ‘Sambar Alliance', but officially named ’Vikasana Munnani’ or Janakiya Munnani were used by the CPM against their political rivals. This political tactic is being replicated by the League now.

Discussions are on in the League to accommodate Welfare Party of India (WPI) into the UDF line-up, which had contested in the 2015 local body polls and aligned mostly with CPM under the banner of Janakiya Munnani at several places across the state. IUML national secretary PK Kunhalikkutty publicised the matter at Malappuram. Kunjalikkutty said that the final decision in this regard will be taken by UDF.