Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s emergence as Left Democratic Front’s mascot in the Assembly elections has some parallels with how V.S. Achuthanandan, his one-time mentor and former Polit Bureau colleague, became a crowd-puller.
While Mr. Achuthanandan is perceived as a crusader against corruption with a tough stand on environmental issues and atrocities against women, Mr. Vijayan is seen more as a crisis manager, and ‘fatherly figure’ who gets things done.
Mr. Achuthanandan was perceived as a typical party boss between 1980 and 1992 when he was CPI(M) State secretary. The LDF’s chief ministerial face in the 1991 Assembly polls, Mr. Achuthanandan was chosen as Leader of the Opposition since the front could not come to power. It was then that he raked up corruption scams such as the ‘palmolein case.’
Second tenure
But even then, the veteran was described in the media as ‘Kerala Stalin’ owing to his hard-line ideological stance. However, it was Mr. Achuthanandan’s second tenure as Leader of the Opposition, between 2001 and 2006, that changed the public perception about him. His popularity soared as he was perceived to be a champion for the rights of women and downtrodden sections of society, environmental protector, and a crusader against corruption. Riding on this wave, Mr. Achuthanandan became Chief Minister in 2006, and narrowly missed a second term in 2011.
Similarly, many viewed Mr. Vijayan as a no-nonsense, unsmiling party apparatchik when he was CPI(M) State secretary between 1998 and 2015.
The SNC-Lavalin case and his alleged involvement in political violence reinforced that image. Though Mr. Vijayan was a lead campaigner in the 2016 Assembly polls, it was Mr. Achuthanandan who led the LDF from the front.
That perception slowly changed only after he displayed his skills as a crisis manager when Kerala faced back-to-back floods in 2018 and 2019, the Ockhi cyclone, and public health emergencies such as the Nipah outbreak and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Critics’ view
Somebody who scorned the media as a “syndicate” working against his party, Mr. Vijayan warmed to the press during the floods and the earlier days of the pandemic. Though the Chief Minister’s public meetings in support of the Supreme Court order allowing women’s entry to the Sabarimala in 2018 was the first indicator of his popularity, the LDF was humbled in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The front has claimed to have gained lost ground with impressive victories in the subsequent Assembly bypolls and local body elections.
Critics, however, are not happy as they allege that the image makeover is just a public relations exercise.
Those on the far Left accuse him of deviating from core Marxist principles. People on the other side of the political spectrum abhor his style of functioning. What the electorate thinks will be clear on May 2.
