Kerala's family plot

In the theatre that is Indian politics, Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy finds himself in the middle of a family drama that would put Tamil Nadu’s DMK in the shade. For the past nine months, Chandy has been caught between K B Ganeshkumar, movie actor, forest minister and lone MLA from the Kerala Congress (B), an ally in the state’s ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition government, and his father R Balakrishna Pillai, leader of that party. The cold war between father and son has frozen into an impasse. Pillai has categorically stated that he does not want a minister like Ganeshkumar, who, he says, ignores all party directions. But he cannot change him because the party does not have another MLA. Meanwhile, Chandy cannot jettison this troublesome ally because the UDF has a thin majority of two in the Assembly. Also, Pillai is one of the founder-leaders of the UDF and is influential in the state’s powerful Nair community. The father-son dispute has its roots in a family quarrel that involves Pillai’s two daughters pressuring the father to oust their brother from the ministry. Either way, Chandy has his work cut out keeping the peace.