Kerala's politics gets 'Me Too' moment after explosive Rini Ann George revelations

Dubai: After the Malayalam film industry, the ‘Me Too’ movement has finally reached Kerala politics. In force.

And it took just a few hours for the issue to go viral and – potentially – lead to results.

It was just yesterday that aspiring actress and model Rini Ann George claimed she was the target of suggestive messages from a ‘young politician’.

It didn’t take long for an instant connection to be made to Rahul Mankootathil, the MLA from Palakkad and rising star in the Kerala unit of the Indian National Congress. Unfortunately for Mankootathil, he was already hogging the social media ‘limelight’ as having ‘misbehaved’ with other women, including possibly from within his own party.

Now, at no time did Rini Ann name Rahul Mankootathil through a lengthy talk with the media. But she did make one telling remark – that the politician dismissed her complaints about his behavior with ‘Who cares..’.

Now, the word is that Mankootathil might step down from his position as President of Kerala Youth Congress president. So far, there is no talk of him having to quit as MLA.

But for the Congress party, this is possibly the worst of issues it has to deal with ahead of the Kerala state elections by May 2026. Just when it seemed that the party and its presumptive chief minister candidate VD Satheesan could do no wrong.

What will be particularly galling for Satheesan is the extreme closeness he has with Mankootathil. Ditto for Shafi Parambil, the other high-flying youthful Congress leader and mentor to Mankootathil.

Damage control

Kerala's Congress party has invested too much in the Mankootathil 'brand' right from the time he was chosen to be party's candidate for the vacant Palakkad seat. In every byelection success the party has had since were occasions to put a further shine on the Mankootathil image. And he was not the sort to refrain from taking on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan directly.

All of which will now come to haunt Mankootathil - and even Shafi Parambil and VD Satheesan. Because the obvious question is if Mankootathil's 'issues' were known by the party's bigwigs, why wasn't anything done to control him?

Now, whether the Rini Ann George accusations against a 'youth politician' sticks or not will be for the future to dictate. But if there are more women actually willing to name the politician, then matters will take a turn - none of which will be good for Mankootathil.

For the Congress, now is the time to do some damage control. VD Satheesan needs to show some of the same decisiveness he showed in the Anvar and Nilambur byelection moves to reduce the impact of whatever comes out of the Mankootathil crisis.

It would be good if he and other Congress politicians refrained from calling this a 'conspiracy' against the party. That will do them no good.