Chandy govt in a tight spot
The death of food and civil supplies minister TM Jacob has put the five-month-old Oommen Chandy ministry in a tight spot.
The members tally of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) is now 71-68, just 1 ahead of the half-way mark, including the Speaker.
It may now be difficult to run a government with such a slender margin in the House. A similar situation occurred in 1982 when Speaker AC Jose had to cast his votes several times to bail out the UDF government. Then chief minister K Karunakaran was forced to resign when Lonappan Nambadan, a ruling front MLA, withdrew his support to the ministry.
The second session of the 13th Assembly is now on and is scheduled to end by the first week of November. The House has to consider the full budgetary demands for grants for the current financial year and pass the Finance Bill. If one or two MLAs from the treasury benches are absent, things may get difficult for the ruling front on the floor of the House.
The next session has to be convened within six months where the Governor will address the House.
Making it more complex, another member of the UDF has now been admitted in a hospital. The floor management of party, hence, is quite critical as the Opposition is almost equal in strength with the treasury bench.
Meanwhile, the byelection to Piravam constituency, represented by Jacob, has to be conducted within six months. The political image of the ministry has already taken a beating due to issues like Palmoil and Titanium scandals, alleged pre-mature release of UDF leader R Balakrishna Pillai from jail, and alleged involvement of minister KB Ganeshkumar in an attack against a school teacher. In such a scenario, the byelection would not be a cakewalk for the UDF. In the last election, Jacob had won by a margin of just 157 votes.
The crucial questions now are how long Oommen Chandy can manage the political circus and whether G Karthikeyan will be the second casting vote Speaker in the history of Kerala politics?