Karunakaran rules out merger with Congress

There was an understanding that the DIC-K would merge with the Congress after elections.

Former chief minister K Karunakaran, whose party returned to the United Democratic Front (UDF) fold ahead of the Kerala Assembly polls on Saturday said he had not approached the Congress for a merger.

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"We have not approached anyone. We are clear with our objectives and we would go ahead with it. There is going to be no merger," Karunakaran, who had split from the Congress last year and formed the Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran (DIC-K), said at a meeting in Thiruvananthapuram.

While striking the alliance for the April-May polls in Kerala, there was an understanding that the DIC-K would merge with the Congress after elections.

Both Congress and other UDF leaders have said in the past two days that the tie-up with DIC-K had failed to yield the desired results.

The UDF managed to get just 42 seats in the 140-member assembly.

Karunakaran's party was virtually wiped out. All but one of the 18 candidates that his party put up lost the elections, including his son K Muraleedharan.

But Muraleedharan said: "We face no crisis in our party and will go ahead with our party decision. If not for us, the UDF would have got far less seats."

Both father and son are angry after UDF convenor PP Thankachan in the first UDF meeting Thursday evening after the polls said the alliance with DIC-K was a mistake.