AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi pay their last respects to former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in Bengaluru Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Late Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s genial affability and natural authority gained through five demanding decades in parliamentary politics had often helped hold the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition together, even when its grip on power was tenuous, as in 2011-16 when it won the Assembly elections by a slender margin.
The 79-year-old veteran’s passing at a hospital in Bengaluru after a two-year battle with cancer seemed to have left Congress bereft at a challenging time as it readies for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Mr. Chandy’s election to the Legislative Assembly from the Puthuppally constituency in the Kottayam district catapulted him to the centre stage of Congress politics in Kerala in the 1970s. He served the constituency for the next 53 years. Puthupally never broke faith with him since.
Mr. Chandy was the Chief Minister from 2004 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2016. He also served as the Leader of the Opposition from 2006 to 2011.
As 100s of people streamed into Mr. Chandy’s residence in the capital to pay their last respects, the Congress party mourned the loss of a leader whose almost magical combination of strategy, craftiness, tactics, diplomacy and bipartisan camaraderie steered the UDF out of tight spots and political crises.
Many believe Mr. Chandy’s tactical gambit of fielding Rahul Gandhi from the Wayanad Lok Sabha Constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had helped the UDF bag 19 of the 20 parliamentary seats in the State.
For the common folk far removed from the halls of power, Mr. Chandy came across as a genial, compassionate and liberal antithesis to several combative and stand-offish leaders of his time.
His empathy for a mentally distressed intruder who perched himself in the Chief Minister’s chair at his office in the government Secretariat on August 4, 2011, remains a subject of anecdote and hilarity.
Mr. Chandy ordered the police to escort the person home gently. Later, he downplayed the intrusion and said he did not want to inconvenience commoners by upping his security.
During his first stint as Chief Minister during the 2004-06 period, Mr. Chandy set the ball rolling on mega infrastructure projects, including Vizhinjam port, Kochi metro rail, Sabarimala master plan and Kannur airport, to name a few.
During his second tenure as Chief Minister from 2011-16, Mr. Chandy sat at crowded public grievance redressal hearings from dawn to late at night, shunning refreshment and rest to hear petitioners in person and give on-the-spot solutions.
However, bad publicity from scandals, some sordid, battered the second Oommen Chandy government despite the Chief Minister’s best intentions.
The incidents reportedly caused Mr. Chandy to perceive politics with a touch of sorrow-filled regret, even though he would subsequently emerge unscathed from the torturous trials by fire, including painfully intrusive Vigilance and Central Bureau of Investigation probes.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) stormed back to power in 2016. A person close to Mr. Chandy said the leader often privately mused that if the UDF had come to power again, he would have fulfilled his destiny to emerge as an inspiring and transformative Chief Minister of Kerala.
