On Saturday, 13 July 2024, three sanitation workers descended into the Amayizhanchan canal, brimming appallingly with garbage, to clean its Thampanoor stretch. Thanks to the contractor’s negligence, they were wholly bereft of any safety gear. So when the volume of water in the canal suddenly soared because of heavy rainfall, and forty-seven-year-old Joy, a native of Marayamuttom, found himself being swept away into the tunnel beneath the tracks of Thiruvananthapuram Central, his two co-workers, perched on the canal’s banks, had only a rope to swing out at him, hoping to save him. Sadly, his body was discovered in the canal almost a kilometre away, two days later.

Yet, as the frantic search and rescue operation to locate Joy was underway, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and the Southern Railway inhumanely began wrangling over who was to be blamed. Our humanity seems somewhere to be buried in those odious mounds of trash heaped high in the Amayizhanchan canal, which took Joy’s life.

As Thiruvananthapuram reels under the shock of his tragic death, beginning to realise that its authorities care far more about saving their own faces than protecting the people they have been elected to govern, I cannot help but reflect on a previously missed opportunity.

But perhaps "missed" is a misnomer, for as a matter of fact the LDF deliberately scuttled this opportunity. I refer, of course, to the Thiruvananthapuram–Barcelona Twin City Project, which I first envisioned, outlined in my election manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha contest, and was successful in clinching until, despite Barcelona's support, it was killed by the Left.

As a port city boasting of a formidable coastline and with great experience in hosting major global events, such as the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona has exceptional expertise in such civic matters as managing waste, town planning, rejuvenating water bodies, and providing drinking water. 

This expertise, I reckoned back in 2009, it could share with Thiruvananthapuram, a city it is geographically, politically and culturally similar to. The twin-city initiative would have opened doors for developing infrastructure, managing waste better, and rejuvenating water bodies, as also encouraging further cooperation in such areas as culture, sports, and healthcare: indeed, through collaborative research, we could well have rehauled our Regional Cancer Centre.

Twinning Thiruvananthapuram with Barcelona was my dream, and I immediately strove to realise it. I myself visited Barcelona in 2009 to meet the leading lights of the City Council, including Mayor Jordi Hereu. 

At my request, a high-level Barcelona delegation -- headed by the director of the City Council's International Relations Department --  visited Thiruvananthapuram. 

Here they held an inaugural round of talks with representatives from our Corporation, and identified areas of cooperation, whereupon, in January 2010, the Barcelona City Council passed a resolution in favour of this enterprise. (It should be pointed out that in those days Barcelona had a generous 'development co-operation' budget as well for this purpose.) Now, all that was needed was for the LDF-led Thiruvananthapuram Corporation to pass a reciprocal resolution.

Pursuant to the resolution, a draft agreement was drawn up (read below) and dispatched to Jayan Babu, then Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram. Meanwhile, a second Barcelona delegation, including their Chief Architect, visited other parts of Thiruvananthapuram and developed plans for rejuvenating Parvathy Puthanar. 

While Mayor Babu initially claimed that Thiruvananthapuram Corporation was awaiting the Local Self-Government Department's approval, he soon began to voice frail objections on the agreement's scope -- citing that such areas as sports, IT, and health were outside the Corporation’s purview. 

In reality, the twinning project, at that point of time, focused chiefly on town planning, waste management and sanitation. But Jayan Babu never brought it to the City Council even for discussion, let alone approval.

That this happened despite the visits of the two Barcelona delegations and the goodwill visit of a Barcelona musical group that performed a wildly successful concert in Tagore Theatre, not to forget the endless formal communication between Mayor Babu and the Mayor of Barcelona, is abysmal. 

One question, however, remains unanswered by the LDF: how did other cities in India, including Kochi and Kozhikode, successfully sign similar twinning agreements, that too with multiple cities at times? (Today, as per official records, over fifty Indian cities have signed such agreements, many of them having done so before the Thiruvananthapuram–Barcelona twinning project was even proposed!)

But the LDF failed to bring a simple resolution to the Council, let alone passing it, even as the deadline to sign the agreement neared, and I raised the alarm. When its cynical politics raised eyebrows, the Corporation claimed that it did not have the authority to sign the agreement, and only the Ministry of Urban Development could (though I declared my willingness to seek its approval). 

The Ministry quickly clarified that it had no issues whatsoever. While a clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs was required, I could easily obtain it. Ultimately, Barcelona’s long-pending offer lapsed on 10 December 2010 -- and when fresh elections were held to the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, this proposal became an issue of contention. 

The Left's victory then buried it forever.

Facing widespread opprobrium because of Joy’s death on its grossly negligent watch, and seeking to deflect attention from it, the LDF has recently been attacking me for the failure of the Thiruvananthapuram–Barcelona twinning project. This is the height of cynicism. Under different circumstances, unsullied by an innocent's death, this accusation would have been amusing; but right now, it is shameful. 

The Left robbed Thiruvananthapuram of a golden opportunity that could have propelled our city to global heights of urban development, transforming it into a model for the whole of Kerala and India. And its trolls have the gall to blame me -- the MP who successfully negotiated the agreement -- instead of lamenting their own unwillingness, out of petty politics, to approve the project.

But I am not surprised, for this is not the first time the Left has stymied our capital’s growth. I remember arranging, as a first-term MP, a special allocation in 2013-14 from the Ministry of Urban Development for boosting waste management in Thiruvananthapuram, which the LDF never put to use before the funds lapsed.

The Left alone is not to blame, though. The BJP-led Union Government has long been overlooking Thiruvananathapuram’s developmental woes. Even when I, as a Swachh Bharat Abhiyan ambassador, recognising the shambolic levels of waste gathering in our city’s water bodies, submitted a detailed proposal for the Parvathy Puthenar to the Prime Minister’s Office for its restoration, I received no response.

Ultimately, an MP has no executive authority: he can recommend, criticise, exhort, and persuade, but he cannot decide or implement. Over more than fifteen years, as Thiruvananthapuram’s representative in the Lok Sabha, I have done all this and more. 

Today, even if I or any other member of the opposition devised a similar proposal, it would doubtless be sacrificed at the altar of the Left’s petty politics. Execution lies in the hands of the state government and municipal corporation, both of which the Left controls.

The premature and unsettling death of Joy is yet another reminder of the LDF's colossal incompetence and lack of commitment to development. This time, however, Thiruvananthapuram should not forgive it, nor forget the tremendous opportunity it once lost because of selfish and petty politics.