Anil Antony | Manoj Chemancheri
Clad in a white khadi kurta and blue jeans, the tall, lean Anil Antony looks different from his father, A.K. Antony, who is usually seen in an all-white shirt and mundu. But, Anil does have the former Union defence minister’s composure and disposition, which will come in handy as he finds his foothold in politics.
While he is seen as a newbie in politics, Anil says that politics has always been a part of him. “Papa was already well established in Kerala politics when I was born,” he explains. Antony, a former Kerala chief minister, is one of the tallest leaders in the state.
Ask Anil, the eldest of Antony’s two sons, about the qualities he admires the most in A.K. (as he is popularly known), and he says it is his “humility and corruption-free image”. “Also, his Buddha-like detachment from everything around him even when he is in the midst of a thousand things.”
Anil was recently appointed convener of the digital media cell of the Congress’s Kerala unit, and is managing Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad-specific Twitter account. Sitting in his spartan home in Thiruvananthapuram, he says he accepted the party assignment as it was proposed by city MP Shashi Tharoor. “I admire him a lot,” he says. (It is a sentence that comes up often in our conversation.) He insists that he is playing a “purely technical role in a political world”. “I am here to support the Congress to reach out to the masses, especially the young generation,” he says. “Reaching out to them, especially the first-time voters, is very important for any political party. I strongly believe that future politics will be determined by this tech-savvy young generation.”
Having said that, Anil is no novice when it comes to the current mode of campaigning. He was part of the Congress campaign team in Gujarat and Rajasthan. “I became part of the campaign through my friends Sachin Pilot [deputy chief minister, Rajasthan] and Faisal Patel [son of Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel]. I look up to both of them and we vibe well,” he says. But, campaigning, he says, is in for an overhaul. “Earlier, the entire campaign was based on intuitions. Now intuitions are being replaced by data,” he says. Another thing that resonates with the youth is Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s stress on “cleaner politics”, he adds.
But, not many young Congress leaders welcomed Anil’s entry into politics. “There is no dearth of brilliant young leaders in the party in Kerala. I know some have become insecure about my current role. But, let me tell them that I have no plan to enter full-time politics as of now,” he says. What about the future though? He smiles and says it is an “iffy question”.
He, however, cannot escape the nepotism question. “Nobody has a fundamental right to politics just because their father or mother is a leader,” he says. But, “it should not be seen as a disqualification” either, he adds.
“India is a democratic country and the ultimate decision is made by the common man,” he says. “Here, meritocracy reigns supreme. Nothing else matters.”
ANIL ANTONY, 32
EDUCATION
MS in management science and engineering, Stanford University
POLITICAL LINKS
Father, A.K. Antony, is a former Union minister and former chief minister of Kerala