Electoral politics may have much to do with the mass popularity of leaders, but governance is about policies and administrative efficiency. The popularity of the outgoing chief minister, V.S. Achuthanandan, and his clean image helped the Communist Party of India (Marxist) avert the kind of humiliating defeat in Kerala that the party suffered in West Bengal. If the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front came so close to beating the electoral tradition in the state and returning to power, it was largely due to the 87-year-old communist leader’s personal popularity. This was especially remarkable because Mr Achuthanandan had been running a long factional battle against Pinarayi Vijayan, the secretary of the state unit of the CPI(M). But it would be wrong to stress the individual appeal of a politician in matters of governance beyond a point. For all his crusade against corruption, Mr Achuthanandan seems to belong to the past. He is shackled to ideas and values that even his comrades in Kerala have long outgrown. He seems to cling to old-world notions of the supposed merits of a socialist economy. His views on capital and private enterprise smack of the ideology that has long been dead even in the former socialist countries, including the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The end of Mr Achunthanandan’s term is thus not something that the people of Kerala are going to miss much. If anything, it will open the state’s door to new infusion of capital and new thinking on modernizing Kerala’s economy. True, the win is too narrow to make it comfortable for the Congress-led United Democratic Front. But the real danger is neither the slender victory nor the pressure that the Congress’s partners may put on it regarding the sharing of ministries or other issues. Both the Left and the Congress have long been used to the pulls and pressures of coalition politics. The real test for the Congress is to go beyond populist politics and embrace bold, imaginative policies. Distributing rice to the poor at Rs 2 a kilogram may be good electoral strategy. But the question that the new government has to ask itself is why, and for how long, this political economy of doles should continue. This is particularly sad for a state whose people form one of the most successful diasporas of Indians in the world. Kerala’s record in several development indicators such as literacy and health has long been among the best in India. It is time its rulers took fresh initiatives to usher in a new, technology-driven economy that will improve the quality of the people’s lives.