Politics back in focus as ‘probe’ aims to silence Pinarayi critic

The Marxist Chief Minister’s daily evening press conferences had become a big hit among Keralites spread across the world, hitherto hooked onto tear-jerker family melodramas, prompting one English daily to even compare pan-faced Vijayan’s  one-hour monologues on the virus  to that of New York’s charismatic state governor Andrew Cuomo. Too far-fetched even in the age of corona, some say, but the fact remains that in a country where the Prime Minister is reluctant to spell out the measures taken by his government to stem the virus nationwide, it is quite natural that a chief minister’s detailed presser on the measures taken to quell the deadly disease in his state catches eyeballs. Kerala, by the way, has the dubious distinction to report the country’s first Covid-19 case—a medical student who had returned from Wuhan on 30 January. But the state administration has come out with flying colours in taking the disease head-on, so much so that the state has only one patient tested positive and 135 patients under observation.
A remarkable feat compared to states elsewhere in the country.  Before Vijayan started his daily PR exercise on 16 March, the onus was on the state Health Minister, quiet and unassuming K.K. Shailaja to spell out, mostly in front of TV cameras, the measures taken by the Left Front government in tackling the deadly virus.  It was then that the leader of Opposition, Ramesh Chennithala, came out with a statement that the “Teacher” (as Shailaja is addressed informally) was inflicted with a new virus, “Media Mania”. As a shocked Shailaja slowly started withdrawing herself from the public glare, Pinarayi stepped in, and as they say, the rest is history.

To the utter disbelief of the Opposition, Pinaray’s popularity chart kept rising as also the TRP ratings of Malayalam channels. As it was, even prior to the corona days, Pinarayi Vijayan had stolen the thunder from the opposition by taking a seemingly tough stand against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act enacted by the Central government. The Chief Minister had become a beacon of hope for the state’s minorities, stoked by the fear of losing citizenship in their God’s own country. By the time the opposition Congress and its allies, including the Muslim League, realised its folly, Pinarayi and the CPM had left behind their mishandling of the Sabarimala issue.
As the Left Front emerged a clear front-runner in the run-up to the next Assembly elections, scheduled for May 2021, a sense of panic prevailed among the rank and file of the Opposition. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, things had come to a full circle. The opposition had no other option, but to toe the government line. Whatever disagreements they had with the government approach were drowned in the self-assuring voice of the Chief Minister.
In these testing times of coronavirus, there were simply no takers for Opposition allegations of nepotism and corruption in relief works post the deluge that swamped the state in 2018 and 2019. However, the moment the government constituted a special chief minister’s relief fund—over and above the prevailing CM’s disaster management relief fund—for corona victims, the opposition saw in it as yet another attempt by the CPM to corner funds for the party.

Interestingly, the CM’s fund was constituted at a time when the CPM central leadership has been questioning the veracity of PM CARES fund collection for corona victims at the national level.

After all, thousands are yet to get the promised Rs 10,000 as relief even two years after the floods with allegations of CPM men siphoning off funds in many affected areas. According to a rough estimate, the state had amassed Rs 8,000 crore in the name of “Rebuild Kerala”, of which Rs 5,000 crore remains unspent.

The decision to raise separate fund for corona victims in the state was first raised by an Indian Union Muslim League MLA K.M. Shaji. In a Facebook post, Shaji had accused the government of misappropriating money from the relief fund to pay the hefty fee of the advocates appearing for CPM workers accused of murder charges, a past allegation with lot of credence.

A stung Chief Minister rebuked Shaji for his post and asked the IUML leadership to better take note of the MLA’s attempt to vitiate the atmosphere when the state was fighting united against Covid-19 pandemic. However, Shaji persisted. Addressing a press conference at the house of IUML leader and Deputy Leader of Opposition M.K. Muneer in Kozhikode on Thursday, Shaji alleged that a sum of Rs 2 crore had been paid to the counsel of the accused in the killings of Muslim Youth League worker Ariyi Shukoor in 2012 and Youth Congress worker S.P. Shuhaib in 2018.  Shaji also said the public had every right to know the operation of the funds contributed to the CM’s Disaster Relief Fund.

The vigilance probe against Shaji is based on a complaint lodged by CPM’s Kannur block panchayat president K. Padmanabhan alleging that Shaji took a bribe of Rs 25 lakh for sanctioning higher secondary section in Azhikode school in 2017. Shaji represents Azhikode in Kannur district in the state Assembly. The timing of the probe is intriguing and is seen in political circles as a move to silence critics of the Chief Minister. What is interesting is that politics once again is slowly coming on to the centre stage in Kerala in times of corona.