The poll battle is yet to begin, but Chief Minister Oommen Chandy appears to be already fighting many battles on many fronts simultaneously.
While his battle with Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president V.M. Sudheeran has barely ended with the Congress high command being forced to let him have his way in candidate selection, Mr. Chandy could be busy in the coming days, this time battling the Election Commission which has barred the government from going ahead with its decision to begin supply of free ration to Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) families from April 1.
The Election Commission has gone about its job probably as a matter of abundant caution and to ensure free and fair elections, but the government’s case is that since the proposal was contained in the 2016-17 budget presented in the Assembly on February 12 and the relevant orders issued well before the Assembly elections were announced, there is no justification in the Election Commission’s decision.
The government has decided to approach the courts if the Election Commission does not accept its request. Mr. Chandy clearly looks towards the roll-out of the scheme as a matter of prestige and he could be expected to go to whatever length necessary to have things his way.
Fresh 'solar' charges
But that would be only one of the new battle fronts, for he has ‘fresh’ charges being levelled against him by solar scam-accused Saritha S. Nair. Mr. Chandy has already rejected the charges, but the Opposition LDF leaders are certain to snipe at him over the allegations in the coming days and that cannot but open another flank.
Mr. Chandy has in the past shown immense capability to come out of tight situations. How he weathers the many storms that appear to be gathering in the political and personal horizons would be as keenly watched as the way his party and government faces the elections.
With just six weeks left for the polls, candidates, political parties and campaign managers are scrambling to dominate cyberspace. Social media websites and mobile messaging apps are already abuzz with campaign material and provocative trolls are triggering angry reactions from online communities.
Congress leader T.N. Prathapan is one politician who has used the social media to his advantage on many an occasion. So, when he declared through a FB post that he would not be in the fray this time, to make way for younger leaders, he was widely hailed on the social media as a politician with a difference.
But days later, with rumours of Mr. Prathapan shooting off a letter to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi requesting the Kaipamangalam seat doing the rounds, the social media turned against him with a vehemence he would never have imagined possible. In no time, memes and trolls posted by various groups lampooning Mr. Prathapan went viral.
And, rescue came late, with the Congress high command putting out the official word that Mr. Prathapan had not written to Mr. Gandhi seeking a safe seat and KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran asserting that there was no such request. For once, Mr. Prathapan would have realised that it is takes so little to make the transition from the hunter to the hunted on the social media.
(With inputs from C. Gouridasan Nair and T. Nandakumar (Thiruvananthapuram))
