Modi & the hand of God in Kerala

Middle-class India’s enfant terrible, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, is in the middle of a minor storm these days, all because of a four-word sentence that is part of a

45-minute podcast in Malayalam to the Indian Express: “I have other options.”

The four-time MP has come a long way from his 2009 tweet (“I will travel by cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows”), which delighted the country with its wit and unusual exposure of hypocrisy around austerity slogans — although he was ticked off for his language by Sonia Gandhi herself.

The latest controversy over Tharoor’s comments may also die down by the weekend, especially when the preparatory meeting between Kerala Congress leaders and the party high command on Kerala’s elections in 2026, calms the MP’s ruffled feathers. A show of unity between all the party factions is foretold.

Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi, her brother and former Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi and Congress general secretary in charge of organisation and Alappuzha MP KC Venugopal — the most powerful troika in the grand old party — are sure to lead the charge that says all is well in God’s own country and that the Congress is sure to return to power next year.

Except, there’s a churning in the southern state and the waters of the Arabian Sea aren’t so clear these days. At the investors’ summit in Cochin last week, BJP leader Piyush Goyal and Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan were seen enjoying a hearty laugh. Within days, the CPM had sent a note to all its party units across Kerala, explaining why the party does not describe the Modi government “as fascist or neo-fascist.”

No doubt the remark will find centre-stage at the CPM’s 24th party congress in Kollam on March 6. Some say this is a return to the stern anti-Congress line being taken by the powerful Prakash Karat faction in the party — after the unfortunate death of Sitaram Yechury last September, who had always pushed for Opposition unity and believed the Congress party was its beating heart.

So the question larger than Tharoor’s ambitions in Kerala these days is, whether the Left is going soft on the BJP? And will the Kollam party congress return to making the Congress, and not the BJP, the Left’s main political enemy — all because the Congress-led UDF is its main challenger in the state?

Imagine, then, what the possibilities of that possibility is, especially as the BJP pushes hard into south India. Could Vijayan and Narendra Modi actually break bread together, even if it is fully behind the scenes, to try and finish off the Congress in Kerala?

Hold that thought, dear Reader, for there’s more. A recent India Today Mood Of The Nation (MOTN) poll, while giving the state to the UDF, set the cat amongst the pigeons by saying that the BJP’s vote share in Kerala is climbing every day — from 17 per cent it won in the Lok Sabha poll to 24 per cent if elections were to be held today. And that the Left will take the fall, dropping by 2 per cent.

You can imagine why the BJP is so pleased. Having won most of the North, including the Capital — Himachal Pradesh with four seats and Punjab with 13 are already on notice — it knows it must now breach the southern frontier. The focus on Tamil Nadu has been around for a while, but the expansion into Kerala has been less obvious.

Former actor Suresh Gopi broke the Kerala taboo against the BJP by winning from Thrissur — the home of Kerala’s beloved Guruvayoor temple — last year. The party believes that the Nair community, once the backbone of the Left, will gravitate much more quickly in its favour.

The BJP is not wrong to hope. Even Kerala’s middle class has seen nothing wrong these past several decades by being both staunch Leftists and going to the nearby temple and lighting a lamp.

The big problem, of course, is that the BJP still doesn’t have a proper face to lead — former IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar is hugely articulate and may have even wrested Thiruvananthapuram from Tharoor, except that he didn’t. So when the four-time Congress MP said last week, “If the party wants to utilise my strengths, I’ll be there, if not, I have other options,” the lip-smacking political grist across the country went into overdrive.

Would Tharoor quit the Congress and join the BJP or the Left? Was he jostling for greater space within the Congress, for example, by pushing to be made the chief ministerial candidate? What role would the Kerala troika — Gandhi, Gandhi and Venugopal — play in assuaging Tharoor? Would the former UN diplomat return to New York, abandon the charms of the Indian bourgeoisie and write his 30th book?

The fact is that even if Tharoor’s hold on the ground in Kerala isn’t as strong as that of leaders like Ramesh Chennithala, VD Satheesan and KC Venugopal, he is the one known nationally, not them — not even Venugopal, although he has the strong backing of the Gandhis. It’s far too soon to say, of course, but if intellectuals like Ramachandra Guha are backing Tharoor, then the ground may be shifting just a bit even in Kerala.

That argument, of course, is well-known. It constitutes the backing for a man who came in from the cold only in 2009 and has still been able to win a Lok Sabha seat four times — that’s no mean feat. Moreover, Tharoor isn’t Venugopal, who has the hand of God over his head.

Certainly, the Congress must shed the First Family’s tight embrace which is suffocating the twists and turns of everyday politics in the party; the ambitions of Shashi Tharoor — even if he doesn’t command the support of influential Christian and Hindu communities — are a healthy step.

Meanwhile, the BJP juggernaut pushes across the Vindhyas every day.