# Ajayan | A hundred days may be too brief to judge a government, but the VD Satheesan-led UDF presents an intriguing exception. Its sweeping public mandate, born largely of revulsion against the previous Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF, has, remarkably, survived the Congress’s old curse of infighting. For now, the people’s anger at the past appears stronger than their impatience with the present.
A Left hollowed out by nepotism charges against Vijayan, his daughter facing ED cases, and a cadre once pushed onto the streets to fight the agency now wary of agitation, has lost its political nerve. Its attempts to whip up youth and student protests over trivialities, coupled with its refusal to confront the BJP-RSS’s Hindutva agenda even as it attacks the Congress for reciting Vande Mataram in full, have only exposed how ideologically adrift and politically hollow the Left has become. To crown it all came the astonishing claim that the Cockroach Party’s youth agitation was a triumph of the Left student movement too; with the Left seemingly eager to claim credit even for a revolt it neither led nor owned!
Among the UDF Government’s first 100-day moves, few have spoken more directly to everyday aspirations than the Priyadarshani scheme, fulfilling its poll promise of free travel for women on KSRTC ordinary buses. Its economics is deceptively simple: the money women save does not vanish into bank accounts; it flows straight back into the marketplace, giving consumption a modest but immediate lift.
The CPM’s response was less economics than comedy; complaining that the scheme covered only ordinary buses and would benefit Thiruvananthapuram more because it has a larger KSRTC network. That Malabar, the Left’s traditional fortress, would gain less was presented as an indictment of the scheme. The obvious question went unanswered: why, after a decade in power, did the CPM-led government fail to expand KSRTC services in Malabar?
The UDF’s decision to raise the emoluments of ASHA workers and others was a stinging rebuke to the CPI(M), which had ignored the grievances of Kerala’s most vulnerable workers, forcing them into prolonged agitations. It was a telling indictment of a regime whose official arrogance and indifference had left the poorest knocking a closed door. The scrapping of the much-derided K-Rail was another move that echoed public sentiment. Ill-suited to Kerala’s fragile environment, the project had become a symbol of governmental high-handedness when its yellow survey stones appeared even in people’s kitchens. The LDF, more pointedly the CPI(M), persisted in imposing a project the people had rejected, and the electoral verdict became their answer. Now, even the proposed alternative is being scrutinized, an unfamiliar habit after a decade when public consultation rarely seemed to trouble the CPM.
The UDF’s move to book the police and security personnel accused of brutally assaulting black-flag protesters during Vijayan’s violently conducted Nava Kerala Sadas was another measure the public had long awaited. Even within the CPM cadre, there was private recognition that the violence could hardly be dressed up as the “life-saving” exercise Vijayan claimed it to be. The UDF’s decision, therefore, struck a chord with a public that had grown weary of official impunity.
Perhaps the crowning moment was the suspension of the ADGP accused of derailing the probe into the violence and facing allegations of a role in the Thrissur Pooram disturbances and meetings with RSS leaders. Yet the CPM defended him, another jarring refrain from a party that claims to be Kerala’s bulwark against Hindutva, and the contradiction could hardly have been starker.
The Onam season saw timely intervention by the Civil Supplies Department and prompt disbursal of welfare pensions, strengthening the UDF’s popular appeal. Yet one dark cloud hangs over the government: the lack of cohesion among its partners. Ministerial personal staff appointments remain incomplete, reportedly victims of the Congress’s familiar factional feuds. The government’s start was itself marred by Minister Sunny Joseph’s withdrawal of his brother-in-law’s appointment. More significantly, even the Muslim League is facing an unfamiliar internal challenge, with its youth wing openly objecting to such appointments.
On PM SHRI, the UDF has yet to convincingly tell Kerala where it stands. Its promise of a committee report has only deepened the ambiguity, while mounting signs suggest the ruling front may dilute the firm position it took in Opposition. A retreat on an issue it once loudly resisted could prove an early test of its political credibility.
The UDF’s maritime grandstanding and the Industry Minister’s promise of Dubai-scale investment raise an uncomfortable question: is Dubai now the template for Kerala, displacing the much-vaunted Kerala Model? Behind the rhetoric of mega-development lurks a deeper anxiety, how much of Kerala will be privatised, and how much more of its vulnerable population will be pushed to the margins? The answers will define whether this is development or merely development at a social cost.
The teething phase is over; now the UDF must govern. A young entrepreneur’s experience at the Secretariat says it all: unlike the closed doors of the past decade, the doors are now open—but inside, nobody seems quite sure who is supposed to do what. With a disgruntled Congress faction waiting to pounce at the first opportunity after its leader yielded to Satheesan, paralysis may yet puncture the euphoria. And with Kerala’s Congress leadership non-existent, the Government needs a green signal from the party leadership in Delhi to govern, or the honeymoon could quickly turn into despair.
