It is quite rarely that the ruling party and the opposition see eye to eye on an issue. Kuttanad's crumbling ecosystem, for instance, is one phenomenon both the major fronts in Kerala hold as indisputable.
Reason why when the issue was raised as adjournment motion in the Assembly on Wednesday, the Opposition refrained from staging their traditional walk out after making their point. Both the sides, whenever they were in power, had pumped money, made grand promises and tried to make things right. Still, both had repeatedly failed to resolve the troubles that are incrementally swallowing the delta that exists way below sea level.
Even then, both the sides had over the years engaged in a low-intensity political one-upmanship over Kuttanad. It is easy to make the charges stick on both the sides.
The UDF accuses the LDF government of merely making promises, and not doing much to deliver these promises. The LDF, in turn, accuses the UDF of scuttling the first Kuttanad package, which was announced under the UPA regime.
Most charges apply to both the fronts. It is also usual for both the sides to acknowledge that they could not achieve what they had set out to do in Kuttanad.
This ritualistic tit-for-tat on the Kuttanad issue was played out in the Assembly on Wednesday, too. The debate went on in an uneventful manner till Speaker M B Rajesh allowed Kuttanad MLA, and NCP leader, Thomas K Thomas to speak on the issue.
In the brief time he was given, Thomas spoke mostly of what Pinarayi Vijayan did for Kuttanad. He virtually hailed Pinarayi as the water-locked region's messiah. "In the 140-odd election meetings I had attended in Kuttanad, I was told by the people that there was no greater Chief Minister than Pinarayi Vijayan," he said. "No one has done more for Kuttanad than Pinarayi Vijayan," he said.
Though he was the Kuttanad MLA, and even the ruling members conceded that the region suffers serious existential crises, Thomas did not utter a word about the problems in Kuttanad.
He deified the chief minister and badmouthed the Congress.
His brother and former minister, the late Thomas Chandy, was more pragmatic inside the Assembly. When he was just an LDF MLA, it was usual for Chandy to speak quite sarcastically, in his laboured muffled voice, of the LDF government's actions in Kuttanad.
It was at the fag end of his speech that Opposition Leader V D Satheesan expressed his disgust at Thomas's intervention. "If you want to toady up to the chief minister, so be it. But it should not be at the cost of the Congress," Satheesan said. He termed Thomas's comments as disgraceful. He said Thomas's only motive was to somehow become a minister.
Though Thomas had staked his claim, the NCP had chosen A K Saseendran. Even after a leaked audio clip revealed that Saseendran had intervened to suppress a female harassment charge within the NCP, Pinarayi Vijayan had stood by Saseendran.
Satheesan's comments, not surprisingly, provoked Thomas. He got up to speak but the Speaker refused to entertain.
