Stealth or steel, Oommen Chandy has a way of neutralising rivals

Actor-turned-politician Khushboo is said to have recently described Oommen Chandy as the father of all men of steel – the anointed and the aspiring. She reportedly gave the Kerala Chief Minister a ranking just a notch below Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Not for her the Loh Purush, the Vikas Purush or their ilk, least of all the aspirants.

Khushboo eulogised the Chief Minister of her neighbouring State at a function in Ooty, Tamil Nadu, where Chandy was to unveil a statue of Rajiv Gandhi.

But the ‘man of steel’ from Kerala couldn’t make it quite since the steel bird carrying him could not land due to fog on a cold winter morning.

The function was held in absentia when Khushboo took to the podium showering Chandy with praises to the appreciative rapture of the assembled crowd.

Back home, detractors cannot agree more with Khushboo about her depiction of the septuagenarian master politician.

He is made of stern stuff, they readily admit, and the personal warmth he radiates belies an icy cold mind constantly at work with colder political calculations.

Rivals who used to strut around boasting steely nerves have been made to freeze into an assembly line of lifeless figurines.

Current Pradesh Congress President and self-proclaimed ideologue VM Sudheeran and State Finance Minister KM Mani may have just joined the line-up.

Sudheeran paid the price for taking the high moral ground and daring Chandy vis-à-vis the controversial policy aimed at total prohibition in the State.

Peerless tactician Mani may have blown up his 50-year-old political career after going rampage bull-in-a-China-shop-like with Chief Ministerial ambitions.

After the dust settled, Mani emerged only as chief suspect in a bribery case of ₹1 crore allegedly at the hands of an aggrieved bar owner.

Political detractors are quick to point fingers at the Chief Minister for having plotted Mani’s downfall in what is among the most tracked political careers in the State.

Mani is no mean politician himself – he heads Kerala Congress-M, the third largest constituent of the ruling coalition, which survives by the skin of its teeth.

Mani could unsettle the rainbow coalition at the slightest provocation. And he did not miss any opportunity to thumb his nose at the Chief Minister.

The harried Chandy is only too aware that Mani represents the influential rubber and plantation belt in central Travancore and enjoys the backing of the Catholic Church.

Still, observers are not too convinced Mani can fight back knowing his advanced age and apparently failing health.

Son and heir apparent Jose K Mani is a Member of Parliament but can hardly match his father’s skills in managing the party in the dog-eat-dog world of Kerala’s reality-show politics.