UDF’s Impressive Record May Drive its Comeback in Kerala: Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor explains why UDF’s development and not Left’s violent politics deserves a second chance in Kerala.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy being welcomed at an election convention at Koyilandi in Kozhikode, April 25, 2016. (Photo: PTI)

On May 16, Keralites will flock to polling booths across the state. The election – in a state which for four decades has refused to re-elect any incumbent government -- will set Kerala’s course for the next five years, amidst the turbulence of economic volatility and stark social challenges.

This is an important moment with enduring consequences. As usual, the contest is between a Communist Party (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front, or LDF, and the ruling United Democratic Front, or UDF, led by the Indian National Congress. The BJP, which has cobbled together an NDA of sorts, including a new and as-yet untested party created by the leader of the Ezhava-dominated SNDP movement, aspires to be a significant third player but offers a serious challenge in only a handful of constituencies. At best it can hope for a solitary seat or two in the Assembly, which it will trumpet as a breakthrough triumph. But even that is not guaranteed.

Kerala’s tradition of anti-incumbency has arguably been the result of poor performance in office by a series of governments hobbled by the state’s all-pervasive and dysfunctional politics. This time, however, the outgoing UDF government led by Oommen Chandy is campaigning on a remarkable record of achievement. No single five-year government in Kerala’s history has achieved so much in a single term.

An artist paints graffiti of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kochi ahead of the Kerala assembly polls. (Photo: IANS)

Phase of Transition

Kerala is in a state of transformation, which is visible everywhere. When the UDF took the mantle of the state government in 2011, it was handed over a state riddled with economic inefficiencies propagated by the previous, faction-ridden LDF government from 2006 to 2011. Kerala, till 2011, was brick without mortar. But in the following five years, the UDF ensured that the state is witness to tangible progress with the materialising of much-needed (and, until Chandy came along, much-delayed) mega infrastructure projects.

The development of Kannur Airport in the north and Vizhinjam Port in the South – both long-cherished dreams of the state that never seemed to make it beyond politicians’ speeches to the ground – were decisively accelerated. Kochi’s Smart City is projected to create tens of thousands of jobs. The Start-Up Village in the city predates New Delhi’s pro-entrepreneurship initiative by several years. Alongside Kochi’s Metro, the INC has set Kochi, and Kerala, on a course towards sustainable economic growth.

The UDF’s program of promoting economic development is in sync with its ethic of inclusivity. The UDF has shown tremendous concern for all strata of Kerala’s society. Chief Minister Chandy’s Jana Samparka programme, in which he visited all 14 district headquarters and received tens of thousands of petitioners personally, ensured the speedy disposal of long-standing grievances.

More importantly, it demonstrated an acute sensitivity to the issues plaguing ordinary Keralites, especially the crippling and bankrupting effects of health crises. His concern has led to far-reaching schemes – the Karunya lottery, which raised Rs 1,200 crore and enabled the government to provide treatment to 23 lakh patients, including free care for cancer patients, a first in India; subsidised medicines for the less well off; and proper supply of medicines to government hospitals and dispensaries. Dozens of welfare schemes abound in other areas, including 35 kilos of free rice to those living below the poverty line.

Re-election would be, ultimately, a well-earned reward for a job well done. It would set the stage for Kerala to undertake a journey to conquer the challenges still facing the state as it continues its upward ascent as India’s highest-ranking state on the Human Development Index.

Advantage UDF

• Oommen Chandy-led UDF government has ensured economic growth coupled with inclusive development during its regime.
  
• Left and its template of violent politics doesn’t bode well for Kerala especially its youth.
  
• Their frequent hartals and red-flag demonstrations have made coercion a political instrument against public welfare.
  
• In midst of sensationalised scandals, the debate is changing to good governance, which is where the UDF scores.
  

Left a Bane for State

The LDF alternative is an option mired in a 19th century ideology that has been rejected around the world with the downfall of Communism across the former Soviet bloc and the conversion of China to the capitalist path of development. Success for the Left – with its regular resort to violence and frequent paralysis of the economy through strikes and hartals that have driven investors out of the state -- would push Kerala to a bitter past that belongs to our distant memory than our immediate future.

The Left’s major contribution has been a massive capital flight from Kerala. The victims are Kerala’s youth, who bear the brunt of this burden when they are forced to seek employment in other states and foreign countries as a result of the Left’s behaviour.

Kerala’s Communists have long shed any pretense of principle in their naked lust for power. Intimidation, violence, brutality, blackmail and even murder have featured among their preferred political techniques. The LDF, in its desperation, has even allied itself with fraudsters and an admitted murderer in an attempt to unfairly discredit the Chief Minister in the so-called “solar scam”.

Pinarayi Vijayan CPI(M) candidate for Dharmadam constituency during an election campaign ahead of the Kerala assembly polls in Kannur on April 16, 2016. (Photo: IANS)

Caught in a Time Warp

The LDF’s policies and positions are a pneumonia that would spread like a virus through Kerala’s economic well-being and body-politic. Their frequent hartals and red-flag demonstrations have made coercion a political instrument against public welfare.

Historically, the LDF has barred Kerala’s access to the global market by acting as a political barrier to the liberalisation of Kerala’s (and India’s) markets during critical moments that would come to define India’s economic awakening. Their opposition to such reforms amounts to ensuring less revenue for critical welfare services and does a disservice to the poor they claim to represent, whose chances of escaping poverty are consistently blocked by Communist agitations against progressive economic measures.

The Left has conducted agitations against the introduction of computers and mobile phones into India, and smashed computers when they were first installed in government offices. Today the Left seeks to make a virtue out of their nonagenarian leader’s first Facebook post, oblivious to their own hypocrisy.

Two weeks ago it seemed that the regular drumbeat of scandal and allegations (all unproven in any court of law) about corruption would bring the UDF down. But voters are frustrated, tired of the sensationalised scandals and distractions, and are rightfully thinking “enough is enough”. The debate is changing to good governance, and that is where the UDF undoubtedly scores.

The Congress and UDF are best poised to continue Kerala’s tradition of persistent and inclusive economic growth through the next five years. As voters make their decisions in two weeks, each vote for the UDF in the ballot box will be a hymn in celebration of the state’s tradition of progress and its continuation.

(Former UN under-secretary-general, Shashi Tharoor is a Congress MP and author.)

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