Mukundan was the architect of the covert CoLeBi alliance forged with the Congress and IUML to take on the CPI(M).
Published Sep 13, 2023 | 3:48 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 13, 2023 | 7:52 PM
PP Mukundan. (Supplied)
Senior BJP-Sangh Parivar leader PP Mukundan passed away at a private hospital in Kochi, Kerala, on Wednesday, 13 September.
The veteran leader had been undergoing treatment for lung-related diseases when he breathed his last. He was 77.
Mukundan, who joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) during his school days, and led the BJP in the state ever since the party was formed in 1980. Hailing from Kottiyoor in the Kannur district, he was an RSS Pracharak for 41 years — from 1966 to 2007.
When the BJP was formed in 1980, Mukundan became its public face in the state and led campaigns and agitations from the front.
During the Emergency, he was arrested and kept in confinement. He shot into the limelight in the early 1980s by organising a mammoth Hindu sammelan at Putharikandam Grounds in Thiruvananthapuram.
In 1990, he became the BJP’s state organisational general secretary and took complete control of the party affairs.
What made Mukundan stand apart among BJP leaders was his strong bonding even with political opponents in the Congress and Communist parties. His close friends included former chief minister and Congress leader K Karunakaran and CPI national executive member Panniyan Raveendran.
“People affiliated with other political ideologies are not our enemies. They are only political opponents. If you have patience and the ability to wait, you can see a communist of today becoming a Sangh Parivar pracharak tomorrow,” he used to say.
Other than being the BJP strongman in Kerala, Mukundan supervised the party affairs in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and the Andaman and Nicobar islands. He was also active in several charity organisations with Hindutva ideology. Between 1988 and 1995, he was the managing director of Janmabhumi, a publication regarded as BJP’s Malayalam mouthpiece.
A bachelor, Mukundan held on to the RSS ideology — even when the BJP stripped him of all posts.
Several leaders including Governor Arif Mohammad Khan and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, condoled the death of Mukundan.
Mukundan is considered to be the architect of the CoLeBi (Congress, League, BJP) alliance, a tacit understanding among the three parties against the LDF.
The understanding came to the fore in 1991, when Dr K Madhavankutty, a former principal of the Medical College in Kozhikode, contested to the Assembly from Beypore as an independent candidate. The BJP, Indian Union Muslim League, and the Congress supported him against TK Hamsa, a firebrand CPI(M) leader.
Though the ploy did not work — Hamsa won by a margin of more than 7,000 votes — the experiment was attempted elsewhere as well.
In 1991, the maverick tie-up backed former advocate general and RSS fellow traveller M Ratna Singh — again an independent candidate — against LDF’s KP Unnikrishnan, Rajiv Gandhi’s bête noire. The experiment, too, failed, as the party cadres rejected the leaderships’ diktats.
However, the alliance had a clause that helped the UDF as the BJP diverted its votes elsewhere in the state, helping K Karunakaran to power.
The experiment’s failure helped Mukandan’s opponents in the party to sideline him. His clout gradually diminished, and he was forced to go into political wilderness, with the emergence of the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah era.
Despite being neglected and sidelined, Mukundan steadfastly held on to the RSS ideology till his last breath. His biggest dream was to see the BJP opening its “account” in the state Assembly and Lok Sabha from Kerala.
He did not hide his happiness when party veteran O Rajagopal reached the Assembly from Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram in 2016.
Mukundan’s opponents in the BJP always viewed him as the someone who sacrificed the party’s ideology to the Congress and IUML.
Still, Mukundan did not remain silent. He was highly critical of the party’s state president K Surendran contesting from two Assembly constituencies — Konni and Manjeshwaram. Mukundan said the central leadership was unrealistic and Surendran’s campaign using helicopters had worked against him.
When a journalist reminded him in a recent newspaper interview that a majority of today’s BJP leaders were groomed when he was at the helm of the party, Mukundan responded by saying that their lifestyles have changed altogether. He recalled that each penny spent was accounted for properly during the earlier days.
He also criticised the leadership for failing to integrate the old and the new leaders. He wanted to bring the leadership irrespective of generations on a common platform.
When the party offered top leadership ppositions to newcomers and those from other parties like Alphons Kannanthanam and Tom Vadakkan, Mukundan pointed out that they might be highly efficient in their respective fields but wanted to know their contribution to Kerala society.
He termed the appointment of AP Abdullakutty, who had earlier worked with the CPI(M) and the Congress, as the national vice-president of BJP as immature since he did not even subscribe to the BJP’s ideology.
