Oommen Chandy’s hugely successful mass contact programmes helped him stay afloat even as hard-hitting controversies rocked the United Democratic Front boat badly. (Seen here is Oommen Chandy collecting petitions from the public during a mass contact programme held recently in Pathanamthitta) —DC Thiruvananthapuram: Few thought the Chandy Ministry on a wafer thin majority (67 LDF, 74 UDF) would last so long, given the aspirations of parties and communities and their tendency to fish in troubled waters. To cap it all, the passing year saw Chief Minister Oommen Chandy buffeted by scandals.
But Chandy, the cool strategist, weathered it on the strength of his track record and the image of a man of the masses. Many reckoned that the threats, intimidations and scandals would sink the boat but Chandy, the skipper, saw “the positive side” of things and sailed the waves.
He faced Government Chief Whip P C George’s no-holds-barred punches, the Marxist cadres’ massing on the Government Secretariat on August12-13 and the disloyalty by a section of party men with a sense of detachment and astuteness.
When the red cadre laid siege to the Secretariat for a little over a day on October 12-13 in a seemingly long-haul campaign, Chandy gave his chief rival- CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan- sound reason to call off the stir. He offered a judicial probe into the Solar scam. But the LDF leaders and cadre still rue the anticlimax. Chandy’s masterstroke it was, though several theories abound on how he pulled it off.
Chandy belies classical superman concepts. It is as if he is running on errands all the time. He lacks the late K Karunakaran’s cunning but manages to outfox rivals and foes of his time. He was a darling of the youth in the 70’s and 80’s. By the late 60’s, he was a student leader. But he was content to remain in the shadows of A.K. Antony for decades.
All the while he built up a mass base on trust. The mass contact programme is an offshoot of this trust with the common folks. Even local CPM neta E P Omana, sister of Kannur firebrand leader E P Jayarajan, could not resist the temptation of tiptoeing into Chandy’s mass contact programme in Kannur last week.
Political pundits fail to differentiate between the ‘work to rule’ mode of many politicians and tedium that’s Chandy routine. Chandy connects with the faceless poor and helpless them in ways he thinks best, ignoring the criticism that it’s all a stunt.
Even the high command could not fault Chandy who ensured the three essentials prescribed by it to continue in office-the majority in the Congress Legislative Party, the support from coalition partners and successful by-elections.
At 70, Chandy has shed his unkempt looks, shows no fatigue. When the Solar scam snowballed, he sacked three buddies but has managed to fob off charges that he was personally involved in murky deals. He has picked up more patience and spunk.
(Writer is CMP leader and Planning Board member)
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