Thiruvananthapuram: If anyone had bet his house on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his Minister for Ports, V N Vasavan, restraining their chest-thumping Vizhinjam rhetoric in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Vizhinjam port dedication ceremony, the person would have been homeless by now. And if anyone had bet their entire money on Modi letting the CPM leaders have their say at the event, the person would have gone bankrupt. 

Both the CM and the PM had their moments at the ceremony to dedicate the Vizhinjam International seaport to the nation, an event held along the Mulloor-Kottappuram beach near Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. First, it was the turn of the state leaders. The CM and his minister did not hold back. "It was the political will and determination of the first and second Pinarayi governments that have led to the realisation of the Vizhinjam project," Minister for Ports Vasavan said during his welcome speech.

Vasavan, who habitually quotes from history and poetry, even sounded a bit carried away by the occasion that he compared Pinarayi to the legendary French general Napoleon Bonaparte. "When the widespread notion was that nothing was possible (in Kerala), the LDF government and its Chief Minister performed in a way that manifested the Napoleonic zeal that said nothing is impossible," Vasavan said. 'Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools' is a quote often traced to Napoleon.  

Vasavan called his CM the "port's architect". And the CM tried to live up to the image. After paying homage to the victims of the Pahalgam massacre and expressing gratitude to the Prime Minister for gracing the occasion in English, the Chief Minister abruptly and quite dramatically turned to Malayalam. Pinarayi's first line in Malayalam sounded like an army general uttering the first line of a victory speech in front of his soldiers. "Angane nammal ithum nedy (And thus we have won this, too)," he said.

Like his minister, Pinarayi also said that the project was the fruit of his government's political will and determination.

It is possible that the Prime Minister did not understand what Pinarayi and Vasavan had said. Even if he had, Modi did not lay claim to any role in the successful completion of the Vizhinjam project except to say that his government's policies had increased efficiency in the country's port sector. 

However, there was one word that Vasavan said that Modi had noted. It was in English.

During his inaugural address, Vasavan described Adani as our "partner". Not for a moment Vasavan would have thought that the endearment he had flying-kissed at Gautam Adani would in no time be reshaped into a boomerang by Modi.

During his speech, while extolling the role of the private sector, the Prime Minister said that the private sector had not only allowed the country's maritime sector to achieve global standards but had also made it 'future ready'. 

Then began the boomerang's return. "Perhaps those in the media would have noted one thing. When our port minister was speaking, he said Adani was our government's partner. This is a minister of a communist government speaking," Modi said. And then with emphasis: "For the private sector. This is the changed India." 

This was doubly embarrassing because the CPM has always held up Adani as the most prominent symbol of crony capitalism. 

For those who had seen crony capitalism in his supposed closeness with Adani, Modi had another observation to make. He said this as a playful rebuke of Adani. "Adani has been running a port in Gujarat (Mundra Port) for 30 years. But he has not created in Gujarat a port such as this one in Vizhinjam," Modi said, and turning to Gautam Adani, added: "You will have to face the anger of the people in Gujarat."

It also sounded as if Modi had made fun of the Congress, too. "I would like to tell the chief minister," he said, turning towards the CM and back. "You are one of the strongest pillars of the INDI Alliance. Shashi Tharoor, too, is here. And this day's event has caused sleepless nights for many," he said.

This was, however, lost in translation. The translator mistook Modi's mention of INDI Alliance for some reference to the 'airlines' sector. It was not clear what the PM meant. Perhaps, he was taking a dig at opposition leader V D Satheesan for not attending the function. It is possible that the PM was not fully briefed about the political context that led to the opposition leader's boycott.