On February 8, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala wrote an open letter to prominent global personalities and politicians asking them to keep away from 'Vision 2031: International Conference on Development and Democracy'. 

The former opposition leader, in his cease and desist letter, had said the conference was a desperate public relations exercise by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to apply gloss on an image that misgovernance had badly disfigured. He said the LDF government's "fascist disgust for minorities would put to shame even the Sangh Parivar".

Chennithala's letter was addressed to Nobel laureate and Bharat Ratna Amartya Sen, historian Romila Thapar, world food prize winner Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted and also former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdulla and DMK MP Kanimozhi. 

At least, Sen, Thapar and Thilsted were not persuaded. All three attended the inauguration of Vision 2031 in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday, the first two online and Thilsted in person. 

But what Chennithala would have considered a snub is not the presence of these legends or their generally neutral comments but the remarks made by a fellow Congressman he had not bothered to sent a letter of persuasion. Former Union Minister for Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar.

"It's ironic that the only state in India in which progress has been made in the Gandhiji's direction (in terms of working for the poor) is the one ruled by the Marxist-Leninist party of India," Aiyar said at the inaugural function. For the Congress, this perhaps was the least hurtful of Aiyar's inaugural comments. 

Aiyar also sounded disappointed with the Congress for having boycotted the function. "I do regret very much the absence of my party colleagues on this occasion, which is a state occasion and therefore a national occasion," Aiyar said. It was an event that Chennithala had termed a PR exercise that Aiyar has now described as a national event. Even this could be ignored, thinking Aiyar is a maverick senior whose ill-timed rebukes, like that of cranky old uncles, are supposed to be taken through one ear and ejected through the other.  

But in between, Aiyar committed what, for the Congress in Kerala, is sacrilege. He declared that Pinarayi Vijayan would return as Chief Minister for the third time.

While stating that Kerala's Panchayati Raj laws should be strengthened, Aiyar said: "So in the presence of the Chief Minister, who I'm sure will be the next Chief Minister, I renew my plea that in order to reinforce Kerala as the best Panchayati Raj state in the country, the state law should be amended on the basis of the experience we have, on the basis of Thomas Isaac's insights, on the basis of a five-volume report of which I was the chairman, and above all, on the note on district planning by V K Ramachandran (Kerala Planning Board chief), which was circulated by the Planning Commission, when the Planning Commission actually believed in Panchayati Raj."

Aiyar even saw Pinarayi as the last of the decentralisation greats. "I'm afraid there is no champion for Panchayati Raj left in the country. So, therefore, I have to fall at your feet, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and say, please, sir, pick up the baton that the Congress has dropped," the Congress leader said. Aiyar was virtually hinting that for decentralisation to flourish in Kerala, Pinarayi and not Congress is the solution. 

This is not the first time that Aiyar had embarrassed the Congress in Kerala. Last February, he attended a seminar on decentralisation organised by the AKG Study Centre in Kannur that the Congress leaders in Kerala had boycotted. Then, he had credited former finance minister T M Thomas Isaac for Kerala's success in decentralised planning.

A year earlier, in 2023, he attended the LDF government's Keraleeyam celebrations against his party's wishes. Then, at least he tried to give the impression that he had not come in support of Pinarayi Vijayan. 

"My party asked me at the last moment not to attend Keraleeyam. I have nevertheless decided to come here not in order to be an undisciplined Congress member but because Panchayati Raj, in a genuine sense, started in Kerala only after Rajiv Gandhi's Act was passed in Parliament. So, I am here as a tribute to Rajiv Gandhi rather than as a tribute to Pinarayi Vijayan," Aiyar said.  

That he did not care two hoots about what his party thought about these actions was evident in his mock concern. "I hope that my party will not expel me or send me to the gulag for having attended this," he had said at Keraleeyam.