Is Kerala staring at another political change ahead of 2019 elections?
Is Kerala going to witness another political realignment? What played out in the Kottayam district panchayat president election on May 3 certainly gives such an indication.
Instead of maintaining status quo by supporting the Congress, the Kerala Congress (Mani) chose to contest alone, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) supported them. The lone Communist Party of India (CPI) member chose to stay away.
This happened despite wide consultations held before this election between the Congress’ top leaders in Kerala, including former CM Oommen Chandy and the Kerala Congress’ KM Mani himself.
Precisely a month back, on April 3, an agreement was reached between the two parties that since the incumbent president Joshy Philip had been elevated as the district Congress president (DCC) recently, another councillor of Congress, Sunny Pampady, be made the president after Philip’s resignation.
However, a lot of backroom negotiations went on in the background, culminating in KM Mani skipping the Kerala Assembly for the past three days. Meanwhile, the Congress leaders seemed to have got wind of it after Mani’s no-show and subsequent rumours.
I spoke to former home minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan. He told me that they spoke to all the Kerala Congress (M) MLAs in the Assembly on the matter on Tuesday (May 2) and none of them were aware of any such move. Moreover, even KC (M) working chairman PJ Joseph was unable to contact Mani who went untraceable for more than 24 hours. As for Mani’s son and Kottayam MP Jose K Mani, who is supposed to be the brain behind this move, is away in London and incommunicado.
This has led to the Congress taking a strong stand with every top leader coming out and speaking in one voice. Apart from Chandy, who had a personal equation with Mani, and Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, and other senior leaders like KC Joseph, K Muraleedharan, PT Thomas, Joseph Vazhakkan and interim KPCC President MM Hassan spoke to the media and went on the offensive against Mani and his son.
KC Joseph appeared in a TV panel discussion in the night and thundered that Mani and his son would never be a part of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in the future. And K Muralidharan stated that Jose K Mani can never hope to contest as the UDF candidate from Kottayam.
It was clear that the Congress was just targeting the father-son duo while going on to state that anybody apart from them in the KC (M) was welcome to join the UDF. It was seen as a message to the PJ Joseph faction of the KC (M) to split the party.
Kerala Congress is a party known for its many splits and at last count has split 21 times since its formation in 1964. The PJ Joseph faction had merged with the KC (M) in 2009 with the powerful Syro-Malabar church as the mediator. After the bar-bribery scam broke out in 2014, the party has been having a tough time and it reflected in the performance of the party and the UDF in the 2016 elections.
What has, however, surprised everyone is how the CPI (M) has opportunistically chosen to back Mani's party after going to town with multiple allegations against Mani and also creating a huge ruckus in the Kerala Assembly to try and prevent Mani from presenting the Budget in 2015.
the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) had won the Assembly elections in 2016 on the back of corruption allegations against the UDF, and Mani was the prime target.
Kottayam district CPI (M) secretary VM Vasavan was at pains to explain their tactical support for the KC (M) at this point. He tried to reason that the “communal BJP and the capitalist Congress” were equally their enemies and this was a one-off agreement. But it was noticeable that he was not making corruption allegations against Mani anymore and constantly referred to the proceedings in the court.
It is in this context that many political pundits have been observing that the vigilance cases against KM Mani has been watered down after chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan asked vigilance chief Jacob Thomas to go on leave and handed over the additional charge to DGP Loknath Behra. It raises suspicion that there has been some kind of larger conspiracy to bring the KC (M) into the LDF fold by 2019.
In August 2016, the KC (M) had taken a tactical decision to come out of the UDF fold and remain as a separate bloc in the Legislative Assembly, citing flimsy reasons. However, it was always known that this was a temporary phenomenon and that Mani’s party wouldn’t be able to survive an election by going alone.
Despite distancing itself from the Congress and the UDF, Mani’s party had been by and large supporting the opposition in the Assembly and even walking out on issues with them.
The Congress’ fiery response can also be traced to their disappointment on realising that the KC (M) might be on its way to joining the LDF in the near future. Despite the breaking of ties, it was always expected that the KC (M) would be back in the UDF fold by the next season of elections in 2019.
The support extended by Mani to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) candidate PK Kunhalikutty for the Malappuram bypoll (necessitated on account of E Ahamed’s death) was also an encouraging sign for them.
Meanwhile, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been trying to woo Mani’s party and had deployed their Kerala Congress faction constituent PC Thomas to work towards that end.
I met Jose K Mani on the sidelines of a book launch on April 12, and had casually asked about speculations over their entry into the NDA fold. He excused himself from speaking politics on that occasion. It seems, the smokescreen of the BJP/NDA alliance was used skilfully to talk to the CPI (M).
But all this could be in jeopardy if there is another split in the party. It appears that not only the MLAs of the PJ Joseph faction, but even senior leaders (such as CF Thomas) have been unhappy with the decision of the father-son duo to go back on the agreement to support the Congress.
I spoke to CF Thomas yesterday (May 3) and he pleaded ignorance of what transpired in Kottayam. I also spoke to the other MLAs, including Monce Joseph, of the Joseph faction. All of them were candid in admitting that the Congress was justified in their stand and it was clear that none of them were consulted.