There is a standing joke about multiple Kerala Congresses (not to be confused with the Indian National Congress) — like amoeba, they “grow to split and split to grow”.

They also switch fronts in the UDF-LDF bipolar electoral landscape of the State, depending on the political winds of the time.

True to this spirit, the 80-year-old R Balakrishna Pillai, who heads the Kerala Congress (B), one of the many factions of the KC, has left the ruling UDF and is planning to join the rival LDF.

The KC(B) has all of one seat in the 140-member Kerala Assembly, and that is held by Pillai’s son KB Ganesh Kumar who is a film actor, TV anchor and a functionary of the Elephant Owners Association.

Signalling the KC(B)’s exit from the UDF, Ganesh Kumar on Thursday voted against the UDF in the election of a new Assembly Speaker. He voted for the LDF’s Aisha Potty, thus indicating the party’s desire to be accommodated in the CPI(M)-led LDF.

The main reason for the exit was Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s refusal to take back KC(B)’s one and only MLA in the Cabinet. Ganesh Kumar was earlier the Minister for Forests and Sports for two years in Chandy’s Cabinet.

Interestingly, the same Pillai had for months pressured Chandy to sack his son from the Cabinet because of his alleged violation of party directives. In April 2013, Ganesh Kumar, whose personal reputation was marred by an open conflict with his wife, resigned.

But later on, Pillai’s fatherly sentiments caught up, and he went on a campaign to get his son back in the Cabinet. However, Chandy remained adamant.

Balakrishna Pillai, who was a permanent fixture in the UDF governments in the past, is the only living political leader in Kerala who has served a jail term for corruption — for his role in awarding a flawed contract to construct a government dam when he was a minister.

The original

The original Kerala Congress was born in 1964, after splintering from the Congress. In 1979, the party split into KC(B), headed by R Balakrishna Pillai, and KC(M), led by KM Mani, the current Kerala Finance Minister.

Since then, the number of Kerala Congresses kept growing. Many KC factions got reunited, merged and split again. The factions joined either the UDF or LDF, went out and came back.

Balakrishna Pillai is rumoured to be joining the LDF. But that front’s leader in the Assembly is none other than VS Achuthanandan, who had doggedly pursued the corruption case against Pillai to the Supreme Court, and got him behind bars.

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