# Ajayan | It has all the trappings of a corporate-sponsored rule, hardly startling in a State where ideology increasingly takes the back seat, whether the vehicle is a Range Rover or a chartered flight. The optics turned almost comical when Chief Minister VD Satheesan defended his chartered hop to Malappuram barely days ago, while IUML Minister KM Shaji went around declaring he would happily roll out his friends’ posh car again as his official vehicle. When ideology travels business class, hypocrisy needs no ticket.
It is good for the present Government to remember the storm it once raised over the paraphernalia of the erstwhile LDF regime - the plush bus for the joke called Nava Kerala Sadas, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan travelling with an entourage without precedent in Keralam’s history, foreign jaunts at the drop of a hat, and Ministers flying abroad in the perennial hunt for investments that remained as elusive as ever.
The CPM itself once got a taste of corporate patronage when controversial businessman “Chakku” Radhakrishnan sponsored a feature in its mouthpiece Deshabhimani, wishing the party plenum in Palakkad success in 2013. Apparently, with patronage for the revolution comes a different invoice. Forget the loan from the notorious lottery don.
The tradition, it seems, lives on. Otherwise, Satheesan would hardly have had the temerity to admit that he flew to Malappuram on a chartered flight, refuse to name the big-business benefactor, and, more tellingly, declare that he would do it again if required. This, from a party that swears by Gandhi, who famously travelled third class because, as he put it, there was no fourth class. From third class to chartered skies, the journey of Gandhian austerity has evidently acquired a rather expensive upgrade, though officially with no loss to the exchequer!
Minister Shaji has no qualms about turning a friend’s plush car into his official chariot. His excuse? The Government vehicle allotted to him had simply travelled too much. Apparently, asking for a less-travelled one was too much trouble. And he says he would happily use the friend’s car again. Austerity, it seems, now comes with sponsored leather seats. As for whether the favour carries any price, the answer is disarmingly simple: love and consideration and admiration.
And rushing to justify him is another Cabinet colleague who began the UDF’s innings with a bang, forcing his brother-in-law to bow out as his personal secretary soon after the appointment. Now Sunny Joseph, who has already shown his mettle in mishandling the power situation and also wears the KPCC president’s hat, sees no loss to the exchequer in Minister Shaji riding around in his friend’s plush car. Apparently, when the ride is free, the favour costs nothing, and accountability comes without a meter.
The Ministers’ foreign jaunts in barely 100 days come with the magic tag: “Not at Government cost.” No one asks why anyone would sponsor them for nothing, or what that “nothing” might buy. Ten years out of power, it seems, has left a serious case of travel deprivation.
The CPI(M) is again on the streets, not against the ED, but the State Government over the probe into the deal between Vijayan’s daughter Veena and CMRL, bringing him and his son-in-law Riyas under the scanner. Forget, for now, whether services were rendered, payments made for services not rendered, or what the disputed “Red Diary”, dialectically contradicted by Vijayan and Riyas, actually contained. The real question is corporate patronage and potential conflict of interest, this time in red.
A company in which the Government has a stake through KSIDC gave a contract to the then Chief Minister’s daughter and reportedly extended a loan through a sister concern. Nepotism? Conflict of interest? It is for the CPI(M) to provide answers to these issues before taking to the streets against the probe. A contract linked to favours given or expected can be considered secondary as of now.
The sponsorship ball is in everyone’s court. Yet no one’s willing to play. None willing to pick the ball. Dead ball; or are they all just ducking the bouncer?
