T.M. Thomas Isaac, former Finance Minister of Kerala and Central committee member of the Communist Party of India [CPI(M)], is the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Pathanamthitta constituency, a Congress stronghold. An economist by profession, Dr. Isaac has remained a strident critic of the Centre’s perceived attack on fiscal federalism.
Amidst electioneering, he has found himself in an unenviable situation of being locked in a battle with the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has summoned him in connection with the issuance of masala bonds, when Dr. Isaac was Finance Minister, by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), a body corporate constituted by Kerala government.
In an interview with The Hindu, Dr. Isaac calls ED “an enforcement agency of the BJP” and says he will fight it to the very end. “‘If the BJP gets a third term at the Centre, federalism is finished,” he argues. Edited excerpts:
