New Delhi: The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has made history by returning to power for the second time in a row, breaking the alternating pattern of government that has been Kerala’s wont at least since 1977.
With 99 out of 140 seats in the Assembly, the LDF has bettered its own 2016 victory by nine seats, reducing the opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front to 41 seats and demonstrating that it intends to keep governance on top of its agenda rather than ideology.
The top tweet on Pinarayi Vijayan’s handle, about 20 hours old at the time of writing this piece, read: “There are reports of some private testing centres not following the prescribed rates for RT PCR tests, and some even refusing to conduct them. These are exceptional circumstances, not times for profiteering. Those who do not cooperate will face the consequences.”
The statement is pure Pinarayi Vijayan, a steel hand in a velvet glove, but it has stood the test of time over the last year as Covid has surged in the state. Kerala has logged among the highest number of cases nationally (16 lakh), second only to Maharashtra (46.7 lakh), but it has also registered among the lowest deaths per capita population, at 5,356 people.
This is because in Kerala, the Communist party and the government are so closely welded together that political direction has a ripple effect down to the talukas. So when Covid hit the state early in 2020, first detected in a person who had flown in from China, the Vijayan government kickstarted all the precautions it had learnt with its handling of previous health emergencies such as the Nipah virus.
Health Minister K.K. Shailaja instituted daily briefings over the internet to answer all related questions as the state went into lockdown — although that was taken over by Vijayan himself after a few weeks. Public health measures on hand-washing and wearing masks and sanitising were broadcast again and again — so much so that even auto-rickshaws began to carry soap and canisters of water that passengers could use when they ended their ride.
CPM cadres brought food kits into the homes of people locked down and a monthly pre-Covid pension scheme to the elderly and single people saw the government spend Rs 32,034 crore.
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Overcoming the Sabarimala row
Vijayan, who joined the Communist party even before it formally split in 1964 and has in recent years fought hard against the dilution of party ideology on the anvil of governance issues, realised that he needed to win back the affections of people who may have been distracted by the Sabarimala controversy on the eve of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The temple entry into Sabarimala, in which the Supreme Court also got involved — a larger Constitution Bench is now looking into the issue — so roiled the population that the BJP coalition won about 15 per cent of the vote share in the Parliamentary elections in 2019.
But that vote share has dropped this election to about 12 per cent, nor is it likely that the BJP will win even one seat in the Assembly — in the outgoing Assembly, it has one seat in Nemom constituency on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.
So the chief minister tasked his finance minister Thomas Isaac to float infrastructure bonds under the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board or KIIF-B, and raise funds from the market. Isaac even travelled to London and rang the bell at the London Stock Exchange to float these masala bonds, which were backed by a Communist government.
The monies raised have gone into revamping schools for children, building hospitals in each of the 73 talukas in the state, refurbishing roads and street-lights and even improving the condition of the Thrissur zoo.
Unlike the Left Front in West Bengal that has been completely wiped out, not winning even a single seat in the 294-seat Assembly, the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala has kept a low profile and focussed on its problems within.
The polls show that the people approve.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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