Mani flays Left leaders

TPURAM: Kerala Congress (M) leader K.M. Mani, on Saturday, trained his guns on the leaders of the Left Democratic Front by questioning their moral right to criticize the proposed merger between his party and the Kerala Congress(J). Mani fell back on contemporary Kerala political history to pillory the Left leaders who termed Josephs shift as �cheating and depicted him as a villain.Manis contention was that the Kerala Congress(J) had not done anything different from what the Communist Party of India did in 1979, when the then Chief Minister P.K. Vasudevan Nair suddenly resigned and announced his partys decision to quit the then Democratic Front and join the coalition led by the CPI(M) as part of the moves to foster Left unity. Joseph�s decision to merge his party with the Kerala Congress(M) is in the interests of the unity of Kerala Congress factions. If what the CPI did in 1979 was right, how can what Joseph did now be wrong?� Mani asked.