THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Before the giants of BJP parliamentary politics incarnated on the national stage, P P Mukundan was one right-wing leader who showed the patriarchs of coalition politics in Kerala that the Sangh does matter. Although his political experiment with the Congress and the Muslim League, notoriously termed the ‘Co-Le-B’ alliance, turned out to be a failure for his party, it proved BJP-RSS votes count in determining the fate of LDF and UDF candidates in many constituencies. Mukundan always punched above his weight.
In 1990, the RSS appointed its most trusted lieutenant as organisational general secretary to the BJP, at a time when the party had very little roots in the state. K G Marar was the party’s general secretary and K Raman Pillai's president. It took just a few years for Mukundan to attain a larger-than-life image inside and outside the BJP. He was the first leader in the state BJP to make friends in parties other to his: then chief minister and Congress leader K Karunakaran, home minister Vayalar Ravi and P K Kunhalikutty were key among them.
He also befriended film personalities and cultural activists. His close ties with director Priyadarshan and actors Bharath Gopi and Sukumaran gave the party a fresh lease of life.
However, it was the political experiment that he spearheaded which ultimately determined his fate. The purported coalition in the 1991 assembly and parliament elections landed the BJP in perpetual infamy, while its partners in crime -- the Congress and the League -- washed their hands off quickly. It was the landslide victory of the LDF, led by the E K Nayanar government, in the district council elections that prompted the CPM to call early elections. This offered an opportunity for Mukundan and the Congress and League leaders to strike an unofficial deal. Mukundan convinced the BJP-RSS leadership of the new formula.
Based on their understanding, the UDF put up a consensus of candidates for the Beypore assembly and Vadakara parliament seats. The BJP did not contest these two seats. It was reportedly agreed that the UDF would, in return, help BJP’s Marar win the Manjeswaram assembly constituency. However, the Rajiv Gandhi assassination put paid to all pre-poll adjustments, as the Congress, which realised it could win the election on its own, did not bother to flip the votes in Manjeswaram.
The LDF won in both Beypore and Vadakara. All the blame fell on the chief architect of the ‘Co-Le-B’ alliance, Mukundan. BJP leaders, including Raman Pillai and O Rajagopal, who claimed the ‘deal’ was reached without their knowledge, turned on Mukundan. If the election results had been different the fates of the BJP, Mukundan and Kerala politics would have taken another turn.
The RSS asked Mukundan to return to its tent. But he refused. He was accused of waddling in murky politics. But, it was also pointed out that his experiment was not centred around the politics of votes.
The RSS reacted by removing him from the post of pracharak. But he continued to maintain an iron grip over the BJP. Mukundan, however, failed to foresee the undercurrents in the national leadership. The party’s national general secretary, Sanjay Joshi, had his back. However, it changed with the arrival of new national leaders. Joshi did not enjoy a good relationship with Narendra Modi. After Modi became chief minister of Gujarat, Joshi was replaced.
The BJP national leadership moved Mukundan out of Kerala, giving him charge of three southern states. Though he had nurtured a long list of BJP leaders, including C K Padmanabhan, P S Sreedharan Pillai, and the present state president K Surendran, Mukundan and the party leadership knew that equations would not be the same again. Although he tried to make a comeback to the state BJP, he realised the bitter truth that in politics there are no permanent friends.