In a fractious coalition, Chandy gets the upper hand again

The rambunctious Mani episode has again proved the political dexterity of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Ever since his second term as Chief Minister began with a razor-thin majority in 2011, Chandy has been fighting the power-hungry and rebellious partners in his own fractious coalition rather than the Left Front-led Opposition.

But a challenge to his leadership from within the ruling United Democratic Front seems to have been neutralised by fortuitous circumstances.

Finance Minister KM Mani, the de facto number two in the Chandy Cabinet, heads a faction of the Kerala Congress named after him, which is the second biggest party in the coalition. He holds the record for having presented the maximum number of (12) budgets in the State Assembly. He is also the longest-serving Minister and member of the Assembly, representing the Palai constituency without a break since 1965.

Mani is now at the centre of the raging controversy over bribery charges levelled by a leading bar hotelier for favours the Minister failed to deliver. The hotelier revealed on television that the Minister demanded ₹5 crore, and that he had handed over ₹1 crore at the latter’s ancestral home at Palai in Kottayam district, to get the licences of 418 bars renewed.

This has sent the ruling front into a tizzy, but known detractors of the veteran within the coalition are chuckling at the sudden turn of events. Mani had sought to raise on the sly the spectre of a rebellion too often, betraying his chief ministerial ambitions.

The ‘balmy army’ led by his irrepressible lieutenant PC George was allowed to speak critically and out of turn on issues related to policy matters and governance.

The Opposition Left Democratic Front seemed willing to consider Mani for the top job in the event of the one led by Chandy collapsing with Mani faction’s withdrawal. Interlocutors would overtly and covertly send out feelers offering the coveted position that has eluded Mani in his 50-year career.

Mani would neither confirm nor completely deny the hobnobbing with the LDF and kept an enigmatic silence that seemed to give the game away. At 81, he seemed ill-at-ease to serve under a Chief Ministers much younger to him. He may have sniffed an opportunity here, but looks like having been led up the garden path, only to see the ground slipping from under his feet.

Observers less charitable to Chandy attribute Mani’s travails to a Machiavellian game orchestrated by the Chief Minister and his close aides. According to them, Chandy wanted to call Mani’s bluff and end his flirtation with the Left Front.

He was just waiting for an opportunity, and grabbed it with alacrity when the bribery charge presented itself, even while mouthing utmost faith in Mani’s credentials.

Initially Chandy was non-committal, but has since chosen to go by the rule book – institute preliminary proceedings for a vigilance inquiry – which must have come as shell-shock to Mani.

Through this master stroke, Chandy has ensured that the muck of corruption charge sticks on Mani making him a persona non grata to the CPI(M)-led Opposition.

And he succeeded: even Pinarayi Vijayan, State Secretary of the CPI(M) and an ardent Mani-admirer, is now demanding his scalp. VS Achuthanandan, Leader of Opposition and a known Mani-bête noire, is adamant that the corruption case be entrusted to the CBI.