Rajeev Chandrasekhar interview | ‘It is about replacing political culture of not doing anything with politics of performance’

Having donned several hats, technocrat and industrialist-turned politician is entering the electoral fray for the first time. The three-time Rajya Sabha member, who has represented Karnataka thus far, has taken a calculated detour to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s ‘mission’ to make inroads in Kerala that has been an impenetrable stronghold of the Congress and the CPI(M)-led coalitions.

The Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Jal Shakti has based his campaign strategy in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency on highlighting the untapped potential of the Kerala capital as a technology, tourism and research behemoth.

He is pitted against Congress Working Committee member and incumbent Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who is gunning for a record fourth consecutive victory from the constituency, and former Communist Party of India (CPI) Kerala State secretary and former MP Pannian Raveendran.

In an interview with The Hindu at the bustling party election committee office in Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Chandrasekhar flayed both the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) for allegedly preventing Kerala from achieving such goals and resorting to “petty politics” for their respective gains.

Having kickstarted your poll campaign much ahead of your rivals, you have been able to interact with a large number of people representing various cross-sections of the population. What has been your poll plank on the hustings?

I do not see this as a contest any more, but a mission. I have travelled the length and breadth of this district (Thiruvananthapuram) and have seen sights of people and their living conditions which are unacceptable in 2024. We have people living in half-built houses that were promised to them 15 years ago and others whose livelihoods have been wiped out in this day and age where we are living. Sadly, nobody is doing anything about it.

For me, this is really about replacing the political culture, where not doing anything and making hollow promises, with what I call politics of performance. I am very confident that today, any Indian anywhere in the country, including in Thiruvananthapuram, aspires for a better future. The people see me as an agent of change and as one who can perform and deliver.

You have been termed by your political opponents an outsider. Various sections have also raised doubts over your familiarity with the constituency. Have you been able to shed the tag?

What is familiarity? It is silly to dub people as outsiders and insiders in politics. I have created more jobs, made more investments in Kerala than anybody else here. I built the first cellular network in Kerala in 1996. Everybody here knows who I am. I have also been travelling in Kerala as a (Union) Minister.

Yes, I am an outsider by way of the political culture that these two parties (the Congress and the CPI(M)) represent. I am very different from them. I am not going to do negative politics by appeasing any one community or resort to other such tactics. I am certainly an outsider in that aspect and I am not shy to say that I am very different from the two of them.

You often speak of how Kerala and in particular, Thiruvananthapuram, missed the bus in the race for development. What has formed the basis for your vehement criticism of the State’s growth model?

It is a fact. There are three areas that have so much potential in Thiruvananthapuram today. The first is the technology sector. The Technopark concept, which I witnessed back in 1996, was then unheard of anywhere else in the country. There was not a murmur of it in Karnataka or Tamil Nadu. Nobody had even thought about it in Hyderabad, Gurugram, Mumbai or anywhere else. Where do we stand now? The city currently stands in the 18th position (among start-up ecosystems) in the country. I am not saying we are bad in technology, but we are certainly not among where we should be currently as a pioneer.

Tourism, which used to be another fast growing sector in the State, has been witnessing a downslide. Thiruvananthapuram had pioneered health and wellness tourism segments back in the 1990s. However, we do not have foreign visitors as we used to have in the past. Our research and knowledge sectors have also been ailing with 37% of all undergraduate seats remaining vacant in the higher education institutions in Kerala.

The political vision in the state has been absolutely weak. They (LDF and UDF) have never focussed on the economy, but mostly on politics. And today, that is the reason why this proud State, which I call my own and has so many talented people, is forced to borrow money at high interest rates to pay pensions and salaries.

Compounding the hardships caused by economic mismanagement, an atmosphere has been created where investments are a bit complicated. The plight suffered by KITEX is an example of how investors are forced to run away. You cannot create a buoyant economy without investments coming, and without a buoyant economy, you cannot create jobs and opportunities. Without jobs and opportunities, children will not join colleges here for their studies. So, we have to bell the cat at some point.

Both the UDF and the LDF have harped on controversies surrounding the [Citizenship (Amendment) Act] (CAA) as well as the conflict in Manipur to attack the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre. Are you concerned that such emotive issues will affect your prospects here?

They adopt the same old strategy in every election, while the discussions should ideally centre around performance, who did what and who is capable of doing what. This is not unusual. They will discuss every other issue including CAA, Hamas and even a holiday announced in Manipur, but never the performances of the State government’s and the Congress in governance.

That is their politics. When you are bereft of ideas and you have no exciting projects for a youngster today, what will you do? You will scare them, instil fear in them.

Your campaign has intensely focussed on the coastal belt of Thiruvananthapuram with several promises being made to address the perennial issues faced by the local communities. While the BJP has failed to make inroads in such territories in the past, have you succeeded in winning the confidence among the fisherfolk?

My visits (to coastal areas) are not at all deliberate, but were decided the moment I launched my election campaign. During one such visit to Pozhiyoor (a coastal hamlet near Neyyattinkara) that has been ravaged by sea erosion, somebody claimed that the problem could never be solved. I was able to understand that the problem has been allowed to fester for nearly eight years. In the process, we have been losing 50 metres of the coastline every year.

The absence of preventive measures has caused damage to Kerala’s beaches. For a fishing community, if you don’t have a beach, you can’t launch your boat. And you can’t bring your catch back in. It is like saying that I’m in a factory, but there’s no machinery there. As a result, the livelihood of the people has been destroyed. While nobody has uttered a word for them, I have taken up the issue with the Fisheries department (under the Union Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying).