Firstpost: Kerala: Monday, July 18,
2016.
Nobody in
Kerala, not even the Congress, would have thought that Chief Minister Pinarayi
Vijayan would prove himself to be a bundle of contradictions this fast. The man
who campaigned against the lack of transparency and alleged cronyism of the
Oomen Chandy government is now a big symbol of both afflictions.
Worse still
is that while Chandy looked for ways to trick the people with his mild manners,
Vijayan is brazening it out.
Two
controversies, real controversies, surround Vijayan government, or rather
Vijayan himself. First, he is refusing to obey the orders of the chief information
commissioner who has asked the government to make public the decisions of his
cabinet meetings; and second, his honorary legal advisor is also the advisor of
many suspected lawbreakers that the state is seeking to prosecute.
In simple
terms of democratic governance, both denote blatant impropriety. Right to
Information was a major breakthrough that began to clear the rot in Indian
democracy and offered some hope against corruption and political immorality.
The CPM was a big beneficiary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in Kerala
because many of their battles against the Chandy government rode on the
information gathered by the media and the public using the Act.
Pushed to
wall by the media and RTI activists, Chandy had even issued an order in the
final days of his government not to disclose details of the vigilance cases
against his officials and ministers. Vijayan was at his acrimonious best then
and had charged that Chandy was hiding behind secrecy out of fear. Chandy was
scared that he would be driven out by people if they saw his true colours,
Vijayan had said.
Had there
been no RTI or media leaks from the reformists within the Congress, Vijayan
would have been short on ammunition and probably the Left Front wouldn’t have
managed its present majority. The same Vijayan is now emulating Chandy’s
secretive ways and is justifying them too.
Chandy had
become secretive only at the end of his term, but Vijayan wants to install an
iron curtain right from the beginning and seemingly doesn’t care about the
public outcry and mounting media pressure. Chandy had been extremely
accessible, held media briefings after every cabinet meeting, and freely gave
interviews. In contrast, Vijayan scrapped the long-held tradition of post-cabinet
press briefings with the excuse that public relations was not the job of his
office, and blocked the reach of the RTI Act.
That his
government will contest the chief information commissioner’s order in court
rather than disclose the details of his cabinet decisions smacks either of an
anxiety that totalitarian, including communist, regimes always betrayed, or a
total disregard for the principles of democracy and governance. Opposition will
be completely justified if they allege that this obsession with opacity is a
cover for corruption, cronyism and illegality. In the UN book, transparency is
one of the defining principles of democratic governance. As a party that picked
on Chandy’s lack of transparency and misconduct, the CPM should have gone one
step ahead by even submitting its government’s performance to public audit.
Unfortunately, it began by cowering under pressure for transparency.
The other
controversy is equally baffling. He has appointed a top Kerala lawyer, MK
Damodaran, as his honorary legal advisor, who also appears for people against
whom the government has filed cases. In simple terms, he is the lawyer for both
the plaintiff and the defendant. While advising Vijayan, he is also appearing
for the accused in corruption and criminal cases such as an alleged illegal
lottery operator, the quarry lobby and even a Congress-leader involved in a
scam against whom the government has to make a strong legal case. A simple case
of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
People in the
state and the media see an obvious conflict of interest and impropriety, but
Vijayan, his party and its proxies don’t see it that way. According to them,
the advise is only for Vijayan and the government doesn’t pay because the
service is free. However, there is no satisfactory answer to the question of
conflict of interest. In fact, Vijayan, his party and the proxies, don’t see a
conflict at all. They are certain that there is no elephant in the room.
They also
don’t have a satisfactory answer to the question as to why the chief minister
needs a separate official advisor, on the rank of a principal secretary, when
he has the whole state apparatus that includes the advocate general, the law
secretary and the law department.
Vijayan is
also under fire for appointing a director general of prosecution (DGP) who has
a pending case of financial misappropriation against him. He has defended him
and rejected opposition demands for dropping him saying that the DGP was only a
signatory to a decision by the board of directors of a company and has done
nothing wrong himself. Legal experts point out that this is bad in law and by
this procedural yardstick, some allegations against the Chandy government too
could have been explained away.
Vijayan has
only begun and has already demonstrated a certain self-righteousness that when
displayed by Oomen Chandy was dubbed as a cover for corruption and immorality.
In fact, Chandy’s decline started when he clammed up after a glorious and
extended honeymoon. Sadly, Vijayan seems to be starting from the point where
Chandy began to slide.