Christy Fernandez has the manners of a gentle grandfather. Dressed in a handloom slack shirt and Kerala-style mundu and donning a broad but shy smile, this ex-bureaucrat has no airs that he had once held top administrative positions.
He was the Union Tourism Secretary, Additional Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, Chairman of the Coir Board, among other responsibilities. His last posting was as Secretary to the then President Prathibha Patil.
But this former Gujarat cadre officer’s one-and-a-half-year stint as Principal Secretary in the Urban Development Department of Narendra Modi’s Government a decade ago, is now a topic of discussion. For, he is the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) independent candidate in Ernakulam (which mainly covers Kochi). His rivals variously describe him as Modi’s aide or as the one who had never questioned the 2002 Gujarat riots.
For an LDF candidate to be described as an ex-aide of Modi is a handicap. Former Guajart cadre officers from Kerala have alleged that he had never spoken against the Gujarat riots. He had never been known for having any pro-Left views, too.
“The truth is that I was in Kerala during 1997-2003 as I was posted as Coir Board Chairman at Kochi,” Fernandez points out. He had nothing to do with the post-carnage situation, he claimed. He was not the political type, then.
Though he was the Principal Secretary in the Urban Development Department in the Modi Government, Fernandez claims that he is no fan of the so-called ‘Gujarat model’ development. In his view, the model breeds crony capitalism and helps wealth to go to a few. “I am not saying that there has been no industrial development there. But what is the point of having a ₹30,000-crore refinery that can give jobs to only 400 people?”
Gujarat’s development model was devoid of social justice or equity, Fernandez says. “Development should do justice to all, and all should gain from it,” he noted. “It should lead to sustainable livelihoods for the individuals. If development projects don’t provide employment, it is no development at all.”