MLA P V Anvar speaks to the media.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: Even as dissident left-front MLA in Kerala P V Anvar is keen to join the Congress-led United Democratic Front, a critical remark made by him against Congress top leader Rahul Gandhi seems to be a major hurdle.
A large section in the Congress is learnt to be opposing Anvar's entry citing his insulting remarks against the Nehru scion. Some leaders were also learnt to have conveyed to the leadership that any talks on Anvar's re-entry to the Congress camps should be initiated only if he tenders an apology for the remarks against Rahul.
It was during the Lok Sabha election campaign last year that Anvar said that Rahul's DNA needed to be tested. "Rahul has become a fourth-class (sic) person who could not even use the surname Gandhi. Will a person with the genetics of the Nehru family speak like this? I have genuine doubts about it. I am of the opinion that Rahul's DNA should be tested. He doesn't have any quality to be Jawaharlal Nehru's great-grandson," Anvar had said.
Congress leaders had then strongly reacted to it and had also petitioned the election commission.
Meanwhile, Anvar on Tuesday called on the top leader of Indian Union Muslim League, which is the second largest party in the UDF. Though IUML leader P K Kunhalikutty later reacted that the discussions pertained to issues like the amendments in the forest laws and man-animal conflicts, the discussions on Anvar's UDF entry was also learnt to have happened.
Opposition leader V D Satheesan said that the Congress would take decisions by weighing the political situations.
Anvar, who hailed from a traditional Congress family of Malappuram, entered politics through Congress. He later switched over to the left-front and won assembly elections in 2016 and 2021 from Nilambur in Malappuram.
Anvar has now announced that he will work with the UDF, especially, on issues like man-animal conflict and the controversial amendments to forest laws.