With the Saddam campaign turning out to be particularly embarrassing for the Muslim League—the League has its E Ahmed as Minister of State for External Affairs—things are coming to a head. Chandrika, Muslim League’s multi-edition mouthpiece, came out with an editorial two days ago throwing mud at the Left candidate, George M Thomas, a local Christian. “The Left may claim that Thomas is an anti-imperialist. But it really cannot be said that Bush, Blair and George are not the same—not only in the colour of their blood, but in their thoughts and attitudes.’’ After this kicked up a din, Chandrika said today that it actually meant Bush and Blair are products of American imperialism, while George is the product of a party that cannot disown Russian imperialism.

The worried Congress-Muslim League camp is trying to counter the Left’s Saddam card with the “Muslim Hunt’’ card, reeling out a list of Muslims who had been made ‘scapegoats’ by the comrades over the last six months, from Akbar who made “harmless’’ letter bombs to Mohsin who emailed death threats to the PM and the President, to Mohammed Riyazuddeen, the state chief secretary whom Achuthanandan yanked off his job alleging non-performance. For good measure, League campaigners take pains to remind the famished Thiruvambadi farmers dazed by all the rhetoric that the communists can’t be trusted— “the Chinese and Iraqi communist parties had supported Saddam’s death sentence even when they claimed to be anti-imperialist’’ is the refrain.