The ruling UDF government in Kerala is facing both a credibility gap with the people and a likely break-up from within as the tripartite communal groups are at loggerheads over the prohibition issue.
Last month, chief minister Oommen Chandy made a grand announcement of total prohibition, banning production and distribution of country as well as “foreign” liquor and licensing only five-star hotels for serving foreign liquor to resident guests. In the context of Kerala, earning the notoriety as the largest consumer of liquor in the country and stories after stories of families laid waste by liquor mania, the total prohibition policy was held out as a perfect demonstration of a strong political will of the ruling coalition. But within weeks, it proved to be a grandstanding for a coalition government vulnerable to the greed of its ministers.
The policy originally conceived was to start with an immediate ban on serving liquor on Sundays even in licensed bars. Over 400 bars faced the closure and with it widespread loss of jobs to bar attenders and liquor suppliers. Naturally, first came the opposition from those who were to lose their jobs and then politics took over as the bar owners knocked at the judicial doors. Of the three major constituents of the Congress-led UDF, the Muslim League was the most vehement supporter of the total prohibition policy. The Christian component, the two Kerala Congress factions, were also in favour.
All this support for prohibition was inevitable in view of the fact that bishops and other prelates were in the forefront of the movement to get the state out of the huge liquor bill their respective communities were running giving the state government an income of `18,000 crore annually.
As the policy announcement was made without full consideration of all the facts—the state is bordered by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka from where liquor is imported to meet the rising demands of addicts—or providing for alternative jobs to the lakhs who would stand to lose jobs, the original policy led to a huge protest.
To rub the UDF on the wrong side, a media report said the Kerala Congress leader in the cabinet, finance minister K M Mani, was offered a bribe by the liquor mafia to dilute the policy.
Caught between this allegation—the vigilance department even had to register an FIR on the allegation against the finance minister—and the demand of the affected by the policy, the UDF edifice began to swing on both sides. A meeting of the UDF to consider the opposition to the policy became a hot point of mutual recrimination. For the time being chief minister Chandy from the Congress component of UDF was able to turn the tables against KPCC president Sudheeran by getting the bulk of the 38 Congress MLAs to endorse the revised policy and counterattacking the Pradesh Congress chief.
With the chief minister belonging to the Congress describing the KPCC president’s public opposition to the dilution of the original 100 per cent prohibition as an act of indiscipline and the state Congress chief returning the compliment with even harsher criticism of the government, the stage is set for a battle between the legislative and organisational wings of the Congress.
The Congress-led ruling coalition is almost cracking with the second largest constituent, the Muslim League opposing the policy dilution and the third largest, the Christian group of the Kerala Congress fighting its own battle with the powerful lobby of bishops on the one hand and the allegation of huge corruption against the KC leader and finance minister Mani on the other.
Culture minister K C Joseph, leader of a section of Christian denomination reacting strongly to the criticism of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) to the dilution of prohibition, told the Catholic prelates to first look inwards before criticising the government.
That was a reference to the known fact that the prelates themselves were often part of family celebrations among the Christians when liquor flowed like water. The bishops did not take the insinuation lightly challenging the government to lodge an FIR against the bar owners who admitted to bribing the finance minister, a Christian leader. From the chief minister downwards almost every minister in the government is facing charges of corruption, enquiries and court summons. It is a government with far too many holes in its reputation for anyone to repair its damaged face.
Nor is the opposition CPM-led LDF in any better shape. The leader of the Opposition, octogenarian V S Achutanandan, and CPM state boss Pinarayi Vijayan are battling for supremacy splitting the party down the lineup to the panchayat level. The second most important constituent of LDF, the CPI, is not seeing eye to eye with the Marxists on several issues.
The long-term ally of the Marxists, Revolutionary Socialist Party, has finally bid goodbye to the LDF. The long-term experiment in the state of the two fronts alternating in government has only resulted in a long-term private understanding that each front will take its share of the pie during its five-year term in power.
There is no fundamental change and the major contributor to the state economy is the remittances from abroad—some 12 billion USD annually.
The tug of war within the UDF over the prohibition policy is viewed as the direct consequence of the contending interests of the different communal groups. The LDF on the other hand had been placating the fringe groups among Muslims to get a foothold in the traditional spokesman of the community, the League. Clearly, the public, even those who were traditionally with the league and the various Kerala Congress factions, are now looking for a third alternative for the rescue of Kerala from the grip of these two fronts. It was evident in the Lok Sabha elections when the BJP got a 10 per cent vote endorsement even though it did not win a seat. In the recent local body elections this virtually doubled to 20 per cent. The evident shift of the public to the BJP as the significant alternative to the two-front grip on the state could accelerate as the next Assembly election nears.
You don’t need to wait for two more years as the present government enjoys a precarious majority of just two seats and the developing cracks within the two fronts could hasten the downside roll to a mid-term poll also. The straw in the wind was the unprecedented response to the BJP’s membership drive.
The author is national vice president, BJP.
E-mail: punjbalbir@gmail.com