Bengaluru: Twenty20, the 10-year-old political party floated by the promoters of listed apparel exporter Kitex Garments, plans to field its candidates in half of Kerala’s 14 districts for the local body polls next month.
The party currently rules five gram panchayats, all in Ernakulam, the most industrialised district in the state. It is now planning to field candidates in as many as 60 gram panchayats in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki, Ernakulam, Thrissur and Palakkad districts, at the municipalities of Tripunithura, Marad and Thrikkakara and the Kochi city corporation.
Twenty20 president Sabu M Jacob believes the party can replicate the governance model it experimented first at Kizhakkambalam panchayat and then in four neighbouring panchayats, at other local bodies as well.
Jacob is also chairman of Kitex, which has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 4,300 crore. The company, headquartered at Kizhakkambalam near Kochi, is now focusing on Telangana for expansion, alleging harassment and excessive inspections in Kerala where it claims the ruling Left has taken a dislike to its political ways.
While he chose Telangana to expand the business, the 52-year-old is confident of taking on the entrenched political rivals in his home state. “When we took over Kizhakkambalam in 2015, the panchayat had a debt of Rs 39 lakh. But at the end of our five-year term, the panchayat had a surplus of Rs 13.57 crore after delivering development and welfare programmes,” he said.
In 2020, the political outfit did not want to contest, but locals forced it to contest not only in Kizhakkambalam but also in four neighbouring panchayats, Jacob told ET. “Out of those 92 seats, we won 85 seats. We were ruling in all panchayats we contested. All of them have a combined revenue surplus of Rs 50 crore now.”
People in Kerala, according to him, pay a combined bribe of at least Rs 5,000 crore a year in local bodies. “With good governance, we can not only save this for people but also turn our panchayats into revenue surplus as we have demonstrated,” he said.
Twenty20 was not meant to be a political party. It started off as a non-profit in 2012 when the apparel exporter, Jacob said, felt the need to turn its village into a model place in terms of amenities for local people. But the business group faced resistance from the local panchayat, he said. Things worsened when, two years later, the non-profit organised an FMCG mela to help people buy products at half the price. Locals then nudged Kitex bosses to turn the non-profit into a political outfit, Jacob said.
That was on August 27, 2014. In the panchayat polls of 2015, Twenty20 won 17 out of 19 seats in Kizhakkambalam panchayat with 72% votes in its favour, Jacob said. “In the past, at many panchayats, UDF and LDF saw us as a common rival and worked together to defeat us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kitex has stopped fresh investments in Kerala. “All our expansion will happen in Telangana where we have units at Hyderabad and Warangal. We will be investing Rs 3,500 crore and adding 50,000 direct and indirect jobs,” Jacob said.
