The jailing of two Dalit women in Kannur and the Marxist Chief Minister’s ‘inappropriate’ comments over it, the alleged disrespect shown to Olympian Anju Bobby George and the controversy over the recital of Sanskrit Shloka on the International Yoga Day have made lusterless the performance of Kerala’s CPI(M)-led lDF Government in the first month of its rule despite the several bold administrative measures it has begun to adopt.
Incidentally, all these three ‘bloomers’ (as one Marxist leader termed these controversies) were linked to CPI(M) members in the Cabinet and a section in the State party leadership itself and several functionaries of some of its partners in the lDF are feeling extremely embarrassed about the incidents and their political fallout.
The 19-member lDF Cabinet with CPI(M) Politbureau member Pinarayi Vijayan as Chief Minister was sworn in on May 25 following the left combine’s tremendous victory in the May 16 State election in which the left bagged 91 of the total 140 seats in the Assembly and reduced the tally of the Congress-led UDF, which was ruling the State from 2011, to just 47.
“If I put the issue in the simplest terms, these three controversies were totally avoidable,” said a top leader of the CPI, which has four Ministers in the lDF Government. “The most serious among the three was the jailing of the two Dalit women in Thalassery, Kannur as the Home Department is being handled by the Chief Minister himself,” he said.
The general criticism within the lDF against the Government over this issue is that the police had acted as per the wishes of the local CPI(M) functionaries who had made a complaint against the two Dalit women, daughters of a Congress leader, creating an opportunity for the Congress and the BJP to allege that the infamous “cell rule” of the Marxists have returned to Kerala.
What complicated the sending of the two women, one of them with her 18-month-old child, was Pinarayi’s comments over it. He first said he had no knowledge of the incident though it took place in his home district and despite being in charge of Home affairs. Then he told newsmen, “Ask the police”. Thirdly he said this was not the first time a child had gone to jail.
“The fact is that Pinarayi often tends to forget that he is now Chief Minister and not a Marxist Czar,” was how a close aide of State Congress president VM Sudheeran responded to the issue. “He is yet to grow up. If the captain himself is being so undiplomatic, how can his lieutenants like Industries Minister EP Jayarajan grow up into efficient administratorsIJ” he asked.
Jayarajan, also in charge of the Sports Department, found himself in the centre of a controversy after he allegedly insulted Olympian Anju Bobby George, who after the encounter resigned as Kerala State Sports Council’s president, by stating directly to her that the council was neck-deep in corruption when she, appointed by the former UDF Government, was at its helm.
The controversy did not stop at the borders of Kerala as Anju was not just a Kerala sportsperson but an internationally acclaimed national athlete. However, unlike Pinarayi, Jayarajan tried to be as diplomatic as possible in the aftermath saying that there were no bad feelings between him and her but that was not enough to save the Government from the trap he had led it into.
“The new Government does have the right to reconstitute the Sports Council just like any other board or corporation. If there were allegations, these could have been looked into. But all this could have done in an amicable way. If that was done, we could have avoided a lot of bad feelings and criticisms,” said a leader of the Janata Dal(S), a minor constituent of the lDF.
He said CPI(M) Health Minister KK Shailaja’s open announcement of objections to the Sanskrit Shloka recited at the International Yoga Day was equally avoidable. “What she said about the secular nature of Yoga was true but how can a Sanskrit Keertana be against secularismIJ There were better ways of putting her feeling about it,” the JD(S) leader said.
According to senior journalist PVS Warrier, three big controversies in thirty days, “that too in the first 30 days”, is too much. “Most Keralites - even the left’s adversaries - feel that Pinarayi can be a tough administrator with the ability to deliver what his front promised: “Everything will be all right”. But it seems that this way, they are not going to do that,” he said.