New Delhi: Ever since Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan led the Left Democratic Front in Kerala to the assembly elections for the second consecutive term in 2021, the question of who will be his successor has loomed large.
While the successor debate has been going on for some time, a poll in Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi has added more fuel – the poll, the results of which were published earlier this week, showed that a majority of Malayalees believe that PWD and Tourism Minister P.A. Mohammad Riyas will be a prominent Minister of State at some point in the future.
Riyas, like many in the current Pinarayi cabinet, is young at 47, and has been the president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) before taking over as the PWD and Tourism minister from the LDF. Came to power for the second time in the state.
But what is perhaps more important for the Left ecosystem – which is often seen as the last remaining bastion standing against dynastic politics – is that Riyas married Vijayan’s daughter Veena, who is an IT professional. Both were tied in marriage in June 2020.
When Saji Cherian was forced to resign One of his portfolios was youth affairs over his remarks against the Indian Constitution in June last year. given to Riyas.
On January 2, Mathrubhumi published the results of the A survey Powered by think-tank MaxEd. Called ‘Malayali Manas’ or Malayali mind, the survey showed that 26.21 per cent respondents saw Riyas as the future chief minister, ahead of the Congress MLA. Shafi Parambil (17.7 per cent), Leader of the Opposition VD Satheesan (6.73 percent) and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (3.04 percent), who have been active in the state.
Although Riyas was the only one on the list from the Pinarayi cabinet, a separate poll for potential women chief ministers put forward the names of former health minister KK Selja (67 per cent) and her successor Veena George (13.3 per cent).
Even Riyas’s detractors acknowledge his popularity. He has also established himself as a mature administrator.
Example of this – his behavior with leftist activists. Protest On the poster of ‘Nanna Than Kes Kodu’, a film about a reformed thief’s fight for justice.
As protests against the film’s tagline ‘Vajhiyil Kuzhiyunde, Analum Vanneken’ (The road leading to cinemas has potholes, but you should still come), a quiet Riyas, whose department that was mocking the tagline, K Nayak and even went to the screening himself.
ThePrint contacted Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office over phone and WhatsApp. This article will be updated upon response.
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personal life is full of controversies
son of the east Kozhikode Police Commissioner PM Abdulkhadar, Riyas is being seen as a person with a clean political image. He is especially popular among tech-savvy people kadnal (Wasp) – Nickname given to left wing youth cadres who are often seen targeting and defaming any critic of LDF.
Riyas was just before the Kerala assembly elections in 2021 Was accused with destruction of public property and sentenced to jail for an incident that took place in Kozhikode during his tenure as DYFI president.
But what has really come as a blow to the collective Malayalee consciousness are the domestic violence allegations leveled against him by his first wife, Sameeha Saithalvi, brought against him.
in 2015Saithalvi accused Riyas of mental and physical abuse.
However, despite these controversies, his contacts in Delhi since his DYFI days show how he frequently visited Bengaluru to meet his now-wife Veena.
Abhay Mukherjee who worked closely with Riyas at DYFI – first when he became a member of the organisation’s central committee and later when he took over as president in 2017 – spoke of him as a man with a “big heart”. We do.
“He was innovative, hard working and had a way of connecting with the workers. He is also a very good orator. Whenever I attended meetings with him in Kerala, I could see from the reactions of the crowd how well he spoke Malayalam. Communicated like that,” Mukherjee told ThePrint. “He also spoke some Hindi, which is rare for someone from Kerala. Every time I used to visit Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), he would invite me to his home for a meal I also became very close to both his sons.
Riyas marries Veena as well caught fire from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) – due to its inter-religious nature and the fact that it was the second marriage for both.
Despite this, the Kerala Communist Party of India (Marxist) continues try to woo IUML – A party that has been an ally of the rival United Democratic Front, an alliance of political parties led by the Congress in Kerala for more than five decades, though it has aligned with the Left in the past.
In fact, there are reports that the Left could consider Inducting Riyas into the party in an attempt to reach out to a Muslim party in the state.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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