The Battle for Pala

After days of intrigue, Jose Tom Pulikunnel has been accorded the candidature by the United Democratic Front (UDF) to contest the prestigious Pala seat in the Assembly by-elections due later this month. The Pala seat has been represented by one man, K M Mani, who passed away recently, ever since the constituency came into existence in 1965.

K M Mani’s party, the Kerala Congress (M), split vertically on the question of succession in the aftermath of Mani’s demise between his son, Jose K Mani, and ‘Working Chairman’, P J Joseph, and a tug-of-war ensued as the two factions jostled with one another to prop up their candidates to validate their claims for legitimacy.

While the primary bone of contention between the two factions was the candidature of Nisha Jose K Mani, the daughter-in-law of K M Mani, it was also seen to be a bargaining tactic by the P J Joseph faction to get himself officially declared as the Party Chairman.

Kerala, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

August 25, 2019

Obituary: The Artful Mr. Jaitley

In the passing away of Arun Jaitley, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lost an incomparable leader. As the Hindutva party’s moderate face, Jaitley played a vital role in making the “Brahmin-Bania party” respectable among the Indian upper middle class and the urban elite.

In fact, Jaitley’s unparalleled skill to put across the most ludicrous arguments with aplomb was an art in itself. Jaitley could be trusted to give a spin to any setback. With a straight face, he would rattle off seemingly rational arguments to make a virtue out of the indefensible.

In his crucial role as the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister from 2014-2016, (apart from being a full-time finance minister and part-time defense minister), Jaitley had the press do pretty much his bidding. In fact, a senior editor of a prominent daily once told me how they would get memos after certain stories were published and, how he had to instruct his reporters to hedge vital information in their stories—only those who read between the lines and others who knew the policy reporters personally could decipher it.

National, Obituary, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

August 3, 2019

An Enigma called Jacob Thomas

If anyone’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma and speaks in parables, that’s DGP Jacob Thomas. Though it’s not easy to sketch a brief bio of him, I have attempted the arduous task. The self-proclaimed anti-corruption crusader is back in the news as the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has revoked his suspension and directed the Kerala state government to reinstate the officer forthwith.

Jacob Thomas has been under suspension for more than eighteen months now. The DGP was first suspended in December 2017, after he unleashed a scathing attack on the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s poor response to the Ockhi disaster. In its suspension order, the government had stated that it found Thomas’ statements at a public meeting on December 9, 2017 ‘inflammatory in nature’.

The suspension was then extended by another six months, now in the name of writing a book which didn’t qualify as a “literary work”, for breaking service rules. Just as Jacob Thomas was due to complete his suspension period, a vigilance case was foisted upon the officer in December 2018, on charges of corruption into the procurement of cutter suction dredger when he was the Director of Ports during the 2011-12 period.

Corruption, Kerala, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

July 30, 2019

Chandra Shekhar: The Last Socialist

Chandra Shekhar, India’s last socialist icon, steadfastly held to his political convictions in a career spanning over five decades. As socialist politics metamorphosed into identity politics in the post-Mandal nineties, and gradually degenerated into family-run enterprises, Chandra Shekhar: The Last Icon of Ideological Politics written by Harivansh Narayan Singh (co-authored with Ravi Dutt Bajpai), Chandra Shekhar’s former media adviser and journalist, and now, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, is a relevant read.

Harivansh Narayan Singh observed Chandra Shekhar from close quarters and this is reflected in some of his minute observations. Apart from his own interactions with the socialist stalwart from 1978, the author has relied on extensive conversations with Om Prakash Srivastava, Chandra Shekhar’s friend of over half century, and Zindagi Kaa Kaarawan, Chandra Shekhar’s biographical sketch (by Ram Bahadur Rai and Suresh Sharma) to write the book. The author’s admiration for Chandra Shekhar is clearly reflected in this biography but it does not dissolve into a hagiography

The seven chapters reveal many hitherto unknown facts and facets of a man who didn’t really get his due in Indian politics. The high point of his career was becoming Prime Minister for seven months but it would be grossly unfair to judge him by that short tenure.

Book Review, Books, National, Non-Fiction, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

June 23, 2019

Kabir Singh: A psychiatrist should be on Call

Kabir Singh could well have been a Bollywood original. Such an entitled and boorish character, with anger management issues bordering on psychopathic behaviour isn’t out of place in Delhi (or the larger National Capital Region). It must have been precisely because of this fact that major portions of the film is set in Delhi, with Punjabi characters to boot.

The fact that Kabir Singh is a remake of the Telugu blockbuster Arjun Reddy doesn’t reflect anywhere in the movie. Director Sandeep Vanga, who helmed both projects, has kept the story, characters, plot line and scenes intact and manages to get Shahid Kapoor to internalise the psychopathic character. But beyond the performances of Kapoor and some of the other actors, the film is a pain for the audience due to its diligence in preserving misogyny and masculine toxicity.

Movie Review, Movies

By Anand Kochukudy

June 16, 2019

A slice of History: Splitting to grow and growing to split

Kerala Congress (M) is on the verge of yet another split and in all probability see a near-vertical break-up this evening. Jose K Mani, son of the recently-deceased K M Mani, had sent invites to members of the State Committee of Kerala Congress (M) to meet and elect its new Chairman. It follows a representation made by the Jose K Mani camp to ‘Acting’ Chairman P J Joseph to convene a State Committee within 10 days, armed with signatures of 123 State Committee members (more than one-fourth as mandated in the party’s constitution) to elect a new Chairman and Parliamentary party leader.

Meanwhile, the members of the State Committee owing allegiance to the P J Joseph camp are likely to give it a miss. According to the Kerala Congress (M) Constitution—a document that has gone through many amendments to suit the interests of its leaders—only the Chairman (or, the Working Chairman in his absence) has the authority to convene the State Committee through the General Secretary in-charge of the Office (Joy Abraham).

Kerala, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

May 29, 2019

How Tharoor Won the Puram

In February, I was in Thiruvananthapuram for nearly a week for personal and work-related stuff. My last port of call was writer Paul Zacharia’s apartment on a Sunday evening. When I called him at short notice and requested for an audience, Zacharia initially tried to shake me off—only to finally agree to talk to me for 30 minutes. He was busy giving final touches to his now released debut English fiction—A secret history of compassion. My freewheeling conversation with the writer ended with some political chatter. And I asked him the inevitable: Which candidate was he supporting in the general elections as a voter enrolled in Thiruvananthapuram?

Pat came the reply, “Shashi Tharoor”.

Was he worried about the prospects of the BJP candidate winning if the secular votes are divided? I persisted.

Kerala, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

May 22, 2019

Has the BJP finally arrived in Kerala?

Towards the fag end of the election campaign in Kerala, an advertisement sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) played out on all channels. The fifth in a series of ads for the Kerala BJP, it had the familiar setting of a tea shop with a small group of youth talking politics. One of the young men is seen professing his newfound love for the BJP to his Modi-fied friend but seems unsure if he should go on and vote for the BJP. “Even if I were to vote for the BJP, would they win from Kerala?”

For a long time, many pro-BJP folks in Kerala have faced the same predicament. A vote for the BJP meant a waste of a vote as BJP candidates contested ritually for third place. However, the 2016 assembly elections saw the contests becoming triangular in a dozen constituencies with the votes polled by the BJP (or their ally BDJS) deciding the winner and loser in many more seats. This was never the case earlier and it presaged a brighter future for the BJP after decades of toil.

Kerala, Opinion, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

May 15, 2019

What is brewing in Kerala Congress?

Within a month of Chairman K M Mani’s passing away, the power struggle to gain control of Kerala Congress (M) has become intense. While, on the one hand, ‘Working Chairman’ P J Joseph is in no mood to let heir apparent Jose K Mani takeover as the next Chairman and leader of the Parliamentary party, the latter has been playing his moves strategically to outwit Joseph in this game of thrones.

Just as he outwitted P J Joseph following a tug of war over the Kottayam seat in the Lok Sabha election, Mani junior seems to be plotting his moves well in advance. It’s good to recall that the K M Mani and P J Joseph factions of Kerala Congress had merged in 2010 at the insistence of the powerful Catholic Church. Back then, the division of organisational positions were unequal with a 2:1 advantage to the Mani faction. Since then, K M Mani (and his faction) has virtually had their say in all matters and P J Joseph was reduced to a pale shadow of his former self.

Kerala, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

April 29, 2019

Bogus Voting In Kannur: The Left On The Backfoot

During the mid-2000s, Mamata Banerjee was often asked why her party kept losing to the Left Front despite her grassroots connect in West Bengal. Her standard response was: “scientific rigging”. In the other Left bastion down south—Kerala—allegations of “scientific rigging” (or scientific bogus voting) has been a common refrain by the Congress in the Marxist strongholds of Kannur and Kasargod.

Gone are the days of wanton booth capturing after the replacement of ballot papers with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Yet, people who didn’t mind cutting corners to win seem to have continued to find ways to perpetuate such subversive practices. In many polling booths in North Kerala, particularly in Marxist “party villages” (a euphemism for a village where only the CPI (M)’s writ runs) in Kannur, the very high turnout often evoked suspicion in the past but was passed off as routine for a “politically conscious” electorate.

Opinion, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

December 13, 2018

A Congress-Mukt Northeast

Amidst the Congress comeback in India’s Hindi heartland and myriad analyses surrounding it, the results from its last bastion in the Northeast seems to have largely escaped attention. With the Congress loss in Mizoram, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fulfilled its oft-repeated goal of a “Congress-Mukt Northeast”. Although the BJP’s gains are incremental in the state, it opened its account with a solitary win to register close to eight percent vote share in the overwhelmingly Christian-majority state.

Congress won merely 5 seats, a loss of 29 seats from 2013. But the party would take heart in the fact that its vote share hasn’t fallen proportionately. The Mizoram National Front (MNF) led by rebel leader Zoramthanga was back in power in the state riding on the anti-incumbency wave. A third force—Zoram people’s Movement (ZPM)—has also emerged in the election in the bipolar polity of Mizoram. The ZPM, formed barely a year before the elections, had their candidates contesting as independents winning 8 seats and coming second in another 9 seats to make a huge impact on the elections—with a vote share of 23%.

Opinion, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy

December 18, 2017

Modi won Gujarat but lost the battle of perception

Gujarat has voted the BJP back yet again. It is another matter that Amit Shah’s ambitious ‘Mission 150’ came a cropper. The Indian National Congress has improved its tally by a fair margin but didn’t do well enough to cross the line. Despite the huge anti-incumbency, farm distress, Patel agitation and backlash on account of demonetisation and GST, Congress still came up short. So, how do we read this result?

For the BJP, a narrow win is a huge wake-up call a year with just a year left for the Lok Sabha elections. A few results changing here and there would have turned the election on its head despite the difference in vote shares. They can also heave a sigh of relief that notwithstanding the tough challenge presented by a rejuvenated opposition, they still won the state on the back of Prime Minister Modi’s final push.

National, Opinion, Politics

By Anand Kochukudy