THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Getting into the Cabinet is often the biggest aspiration for ruling front legislators. While major parties usually corner key portfolios, smaller allies rarely get a significant share. More often than not, senior leaders bag ministerial posts, leaving juniors waiting endlessly for a chance.
Yet, there was a rare instance when all four MLAs of a minor party became ministers one after another in the same government. It was the P J Joseph-led Kerala Congress (Joseph) that created this unique chapter during the 2006–11 tenure of the V S Achuthanandan government.
As an LDF ally then, Kerala Congress (Joseph) had four MLAs — P J Joseph, Mons Joseph, T U Kuruvilla and V Surendran Pillai. Naturally, when the VS Cabinet was formed, P J Joseph was chosen to handle the Public Works Department portfolio.
However, just three months into office, Joseph had to resign on September 4, 2006, following allegations of misbehaviour with a woman co-passenger on a flight. A week later, senior leader and plantation owner T U Kuruvilla took over the portfolio. But after a turbulent tenure, Kuruvilla too stepped down on September 4, 2007 — exactly a year after Joseph’s resignation — following a land scam.
With the party facing back-to-back setbacks, Mons Joseph joined the Cabinet in October 2007 and served for nearly two years. In August 2009, he resigned to make way for the return of P J Joseph, who had by then been acquitted in the harassment case.
If this wasn’t dramatic enough for a party with just four MLAs, an even bigger twist followed. In April 2010, Joseph resigned again after the party decided to merge with the Kerala Congress faction led by K M Mani, which was then part of the UDF.
While most of the party shifted allegiance, V Surendran Pillai chose to remain with the LDF, leading to a split. Three months later, the LDF rewarded him with a Cabinet berth, assigning him the ports and youth welfare portfolio.
Thus, in an extraordinary political sequence, all four MLAs of Kerala Congress (Joseph) went on to become ministers in the same government — a rare episode in Kerala’s political history.