AK Antony: Portrait of a successful career politician as Mr Clean

Arackaparambil Kurian Antony is described as St Antony by the media in Kerala. His friends in New Delhi call him Mr Clean. For the media in Kerala, army chief Gen Singh is the villain and Antony the Prince of Delhi.

However, people who have followed Antony’s political career do not see any saintliness or cleanliness in him. “His strength lies in the fact that he knows which side of the bread is buttered and he has a knack to be in the right side at the right time with the right people,” said a close friend of Antony who has watched his rise in politics during the past 35 years.

Antony is the product of the 1959 liberation struggle (Vimochana Samaram) launched with the blessings of the church against the EMS Namboodirippad government. It was the first democratically elected communist government in the world. The government had tried to liberate the education sector from the shackles of school and college managements. At that time, most of the educational institutions were under direct control of the church, which saw red in the government move and launched an agitation.

Antony, then president of the Kerala Student Union, floated by the Congress, was in the forefront of the agitation which culminated in the dismissal of the EMS government by the President. Later on, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former US ambassador to India, revealed in his book A Dangerous Place that the liberation struggle was funded by the CIA.

The second phase of Antony’s political career began in 1977 when he was appointed chief minister of Kerala by Indira Gandhi. The then chief minister K Karunakaran had to quit following his indictment in a habeas corpus petition filed by the father an engineering college student who went missing during the Emergency.

When the Congress decided to field Indira Gandhi as a candidate for the 1978 by-poll from Chikkamangalore in Karnataka, Antony shocked one and all by resigning as chief minister. When the Congress split in 1979, Antony cast his lot with the official faction and was instrumental in ousting Indira Gandhi from the party.

In 1979, the Antony faction of the Congress joined the Left Democratic Front floated by his bete noire the CPI(M). The LDF won the 1980 mid-term election for the Kerala assembly and two of Antony’s close lieutenants were sworn in as ministers in the EK Nayanar government. But that was a short-lived honeymoon.
The 1980 Lok Sabha election saw Indira Gandhi returning to power and the entry of Rajiv Gandhi into politics. Antony wasted no time and formed a friendship with Rajiv. He dumped the CPI(M) and merged his faction with the Congress led by Indira Gandhi. The merger was described by him as “The Great Home Coming”.

For almost 10 years, Mr Clean was away from the corridors of power because it was Karunakaran who called the shots in the party in Kerala. With the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 Antony did not think twice before casting his lot with Narasimha Rao who made him a cabinet minister for civil supplies.  By 1994 Rao had become a persona non grata in 10 Janpath. Soon Antony quit as minister following some innocuous allegations against his ministry.

From New Delhi, Antony flew down to Thiruvananthapuram on a summer night in 1995 to be sworn in as chief minister in place of Karunakaran who was suddenly ousted — some say by Antony with the blessings of Sonia Gandhi. Though the Congress-led UDF lost the 1996 assembly election in Kerala, Antony was elected the leader of the Opposition. The 2001 election saw Congress returning to power in Kerala and Antony becoming chief minister for the third time. But the massacre of eight Hindus by Islamic terrorists at Marad in Kozhikode and the bungling by the Antony government in handling the issue cost the Congress dearly in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. Congress lost all the 19 seats it contested. By that time, Sonia Gandhi had emerged as the one and only leader of the Congress.

In 2004 Antony quit as chief minister and shifted his base to New Delhi. Since then there was no looking back for him. Today, he is the most trusted acolyte of Sonia Gandhi in the Congress after Manmohan Singh.

The uniqueness of Antony is his indecisiveness and inefficiency. He is well aware that he can never be the Prime Minister. Hence he has set his eyes on the Rashtrapathi Bhavan now.