Kerala: Former leader and finance minister exposes inefficiency of State government

Dr TM Thomas Isaac, senior CPM leader condemned the incumbent State Government of Kerala and added that people’s grievances regarding service sector are mounting. It sounds like a direct criticism against the incumbent Pinarayi government.  He aired his views in his article carried by Chintha Malayalam weekly, ideological mouthpiece of CPM.

The performance of the industries promotion agencies are much behind compared to those of other states. Regulatory departments are sometimes anti-people. Timely reforms are not happening in these sectors. Consequently, our administration system is rusted and it is not people friendly. He criticised the police system also; obsolete systems should be altered.

Isaac added that growth in the agricultural sector seems to be seriously stagnant. Basic reason is adverse marketing condition. Package for overcoming it and boosting productivity and production are not able to be effectively implemented.

He started the article boasting that Kerala’s “administration machinery is comparatively efficient and corruption free in the country”. He says, there is a long history behind it. People of backward sections got positions through the reservation system in the educational and employment fields; he thinks, credit goes to leftist governments and popular pressure.  These words reflect the ‘nostalgic memories of goods old days’  he underwent in CPM.

He says, despite the ‘merits’ of the Kerala governments, they do have their own demerits. He cites the example of major projects which prolongs indefinitely. The administration system is not capable of implementing major projects. He states that these sorts of weaknesses of the administration leads to the attempts to push the agendas of the privatisation into the people. Isaac stresses the need for boosting the efficiency of people-friendly administration to protect the public sector and public system. He calls for the establishment of a populist administration as an alternative to the ‘neo-liberal government administration’.

Dr Thomas Isaac is a prominent leader of CPM since his younger days. He started his political activity as an SFI leader. Later on he was elected as the state president of SFI. Then he graduated as a leader of CPM. Now, he is the central committee member and state secretariat member. It is a commonly acknowledged fact that even though Isaac was the blue eyed boy of Pinarayi once upon a time, the latter started to ‘love to hate’ Isaac, when he was the Finance Minister during his regime (2011 – 2016). Party insiders say that these days careerists rule the roost in the party. Sincere party workers are either gradually sidelined or leaving the mainstream party activities. Isaac’s latest revelation underlines this fact. Now, the article has turned a hot subject among the CPM workers.

Isaac was the man behind People’s Planning, the ambitious project of the Left Democratic Front government led by CPM veteran E.K. Nayanar (1996 – 2001). He had got the encouragement of even EMS Namboothirippad for this project which originally aimed at the decentralization of the planning; the idea was to bring the planning to the level of ordinary people and generate more job opportunities and increase the GDP. Leftists consider Isaac as one of the best Left-oriented economists in the country.