The seeds of the erstwhile UDF government’s failure were sown in the early days of its tenure. With only a razor-thin majority, the Congress had to make a number of adjustments to accommodate what clearly were unfair demands by its major allies. The benchmarks on then chief minister Oommen Chandy’s administrative abilities soon got undistinguishable from his skills to do the balancing act among the allies and more pertinently outguessing his detractors within the Congress. So while a number of good initiatives were taken, administration became a casualty. A spate of corruption charges mushroomed and the chief minister, minus the home portfolio, was soon clearly not in control. On the other hand, the present LDF government, led by the CPM, has no such millstone hanging around its neck. No ally in the ruling front is in a position to browbeat Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan into taking unwelcome decisions that could boomerang on the government. Moreover, the chief minister is also the home minister. True, the LDF government has inherited some historical liabilities like hartals and militant trade unionism.
For a Left Front government that is hard-selling the image of one chanting the development mantra outside the state, it can easily sink in the quicksand of the violence in Kannur.
Strangely, it is the BJP, with one seat in the Assembly, that is trying to take on the CPM by attacking its Achilles heel. Making it is easy for the BJP to engage the CPM is the fact that CPM and RSS cadres are back at each other’s throats in the killing fields of Kannur. Result: The Congress seems to have lost the plot on how to hang on to its position as the main Opposition party, and is resorting to desperate measures to remain politically relevant. Only two days after chiding both the CPM and BJP — mostly the former — for the continued violence in Kannur, Congress workers were seen turning violent in the state capital. A sorry state of affairs indeed for the grand old party as it tries to dig in and keep its fast-eroding turf in one of its last bastions. Surely, it would be in the interest of the CPM — in fact critical for the chief minister — to get a grip on Kannur sooner than later in his present stint. Admittedly, it is a tricky situation for party leaders from Kannur to persuade the cadre to take the foot off the pedal of violence as it could be construed as a sign of weakness by some. But as chief minister, Pinarayi cannot allow his home district to be a blot on his governance by remainig mired in the pool of blood that has been shed over the years in the gory political feuds between comrades and pracharaks.
Undoubtedly, today’s youth in Kannur would be keen to break free from the shackles of bloody feuding that they have been part of right from their school days. The aspiration of many of these youngsters would be to mould themselves after Byju Raveendran, the founder of the famed Byju’s tutorial which recently raised $75 million in funding from venture capitalists Sequoia Capital and Sofina. Byju, though now settled in Bengaluru, hails from Azhikode in Kannur and makes no secret of the fact that he studied in a local Malayalam-medium school there where his parents were teachers. Not many might scale Byju’s kind of heights but with an airport fast nearing completion in Kannur, youngsters would have dreams that can actually take flight. That can happen only if the comrades decide that there’s more to promote in Kannur than violence.
The way he handles Kannur may well decide if Pinarayi will go down in history as a chief minister who decided to move beyond the limitations of politics and step into the shoes of a statesman. Clearly, this decision will also have a say as to whether Kerala remains in the quagmire of politics defined by bleeding party workers, no matter which party they belong to, or move ahead, shoulder-to-shoulder with other developing states, where growth is the main agenda.
At a more practical level, the Kerala strongman also needs to realise his limitations and restrain himself from throwing the Kannur gauntlet at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who could easily choose to take it up. If that were to happen, the friction between the state and the Centre could well escalate to such levels that development may take a back seat. Against the backdrop of the Prime Minister’s promise during his address to the BJP National Council in Kozhikode on Saturday to take Kerala to the top of the national development totem pole, this is one risk that we simply cannot take. Not that it is worth taking even without the growth engine carrot.
Vinod Mathew
Resident Editor, Kerala
Email: vinodmathew@newindianexpress.com