Veena may lose health, as Pinarayi Vijayan mulls changing portfolios

Thiruvananthapuram, April 12

Just ahead of completing his first year of the second term in office, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is seriously mulling a change in the cabinet and journalist-turned State Minister Veena George might lose her health portfolio.

According to top sources there have been murmurs in the way she has been handling the portfolio and the recently concluded CPI-M State Party conference held in February and the 23rd Party Congress that concluded at Kannur on Sunday there were talks about it.

Vijayan is mulling to change the portfolios of only a few of the CPI-M Ministers and Health might go to either K. Radhakrishnan (SC/ST and Devasom), V.N. Vasavan (Cooperation), Saji Cherian (Culture, Fisheries).

A media critic on condition of anonymity said the biggest problem was that Veena had she succeeded K.K. Shylaja, who got all the accolades from the media in the way she handled the Covid pandemic till April 2021 and it was in May that Veena took over.

"The aura around the Ministers is generally enhanced by the media and Shylaja got all the hype, but Vijayan decided not to induct any member from his previous cabinet (2016-2021) and that was how Veena who was in the good books of Vijayan got a prime portfolio. For some reason, things failed to click for Veena," said the critic and added that not all can succeed in everything.

Now 45-year-old Veena was a popular news anchor with a few TV channels here, when in 2016, she got a surprise call from the CPI-M asking her to enter politics. She won in her home district Pathanamthitta from the Aranmula constituency defeating Congress veteran and sitting legislator K. Sivadasan Nair in 2016 and repeated the same in 2021.

It was on May 20, 2021 that Vijayan was sworn in for his successive second term, a first of its kind for any CPI-M led government in the history of Kerala, and the question is will Vijayan do the tinkering before or after the first anniversary.