The new cabinet in Thiruvananthapuram has been sworn in, the portfolios have been declared and the maths behind is more interesting than the press release.

Just after administering the oath, V.D. Satheesan walked the file across to Raj Bhavan on Wednesday where the Governor Rajendra Arlekar signed off on the allocation of portfolios to the Kerala's twenty first Ministry. The new United Democratic Front government, on paper, is a twenty-one-member government. It is actually a single chamber of one with 20 deputies to support. Satheesan has retained thirty-five departments under his own desk Finance, Law, Planning and Economic Affairs, General Administration, Ports, Information and Public Relations, Airports, Metro Rail, Science and Technology, Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Minority Welfare, Coastal Shipping and – and this is what really mattered to the drafting clerks in North Block over the years "all important policy matters, subjects not mentioned elsewhere".

That final bit is no frill. It's the executive version of a blank cheque.

The chief minister's office, which was linked with the name of senior Congressman Ramesh Chennithala in the three times Congress held elections between 2009 and 2014, goes to the man whose name was stuck there and he is given Home, Vigilance, Fire and Rescue Services and Prisons and Coir ministries. The Home portfolio holds much more significance than meets the eye it has the power to control the state police, intelligence wing and the vigilance machinery which has been the lifeline to tighten power and hang themselves with the rope by Kerala chief ministers. Pinarayi Vijayan held on to it for two terms. Oommen Chandy has provided it to Chennithala in 2014. With the handover, Satheesan has adequately paid off his rival to soothe the sting of the defeat, while at the same time protecting himself from the hassle of the other end where he most likely would have created headlines after every misjudgement.

It was the same picture that every Malayali reader has got used to in many of the news bulletins: the colonial era Secretariate building with its long verandas and red-tiled flanks on Mahatma Gandhi Road, right in the middle of the city as it were, still the nerve centre of every government that comes and goes, which occupied the image on Wednesday. What goes on behind those walls is more difficult to capture.

The arithmetic of a coalition's bargain is quite the opposite.

The complete table provides details on the amount paid by each person for each seat. P.K. Kunhalikutty, leader of the Indian Union Muslim League, has Industries and Information Technology (IT) the two sectors that fit best with the private capital and the flows of the diaspora that the Kerala Gulf-dependent economy is built upon. A.P. Anil Kumar assumes charge of Revenue. Sunny Joseph is bringing Electricity with him along with Parliamentary Affairs. Health goes to K. Muraleedharan, a department which will be judged monthly by Kerala's enviable public health parameters. V.E. Abdul Gafoor, also of the Muslim League, was allocated Fisheries the portfolio that caused the loudest off the stage row, with the Latin Catholic Church making known in writing and through emissaries, that a community whose livelihoods are dependent on the sea were once again being asked to accept representation by proxy. Roji M. John is involved with Higher Education. K.M. Shaji gets Local Self Government. The remaining ones are divided by the newer faces Bindu Krishna, M. Liju, K.A. Thulasi, O.J. Janeesh, P.C. Vishnunath, T. Siddique, P.K. Basheer, N. Samsudheen, Mons Joseph, Anoop Jacob, Shibu Baby John, and C.P. John.

That distribution, examined dispassionately, is the portrait of a coalition held together by the coin of the realm: departments. Industries and education were given to the IUML. Slots were allotted to the Kerala Congress factions. Nameplates were put up for the RSP and CMP. The Latin Catholic Church received an apology, along with a pledge for "broader administrative restructuring" in the coming weeks. The Congress retained the commanding heights for themselves and within the Congress Satheesan retained the commanding heights of the commanding heights.

The larger the number, the more difficult they are

The political circus of whose-meat and what-meat often obscures the actual balance sheet, which the new finance minister the chief minister, the man with planning and economic affairs will have to balance. The fiscal deficit in the budget presented to the election is projected to be approximately 3.4 percent of GSP in 2026-27, which is marginally lower than an estimated 3.7 per cent the previous year. As per official estimates, outstanding public debt is set to reach around ₹5.44 lakh crore by March 2027, which will bring the ratio of debt to GSDP in the band of 33–34 percent if only the on-budget debt is considered, and even more if off-budget borrowing is included. Kerala's nominal Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for 2026-27 is projected at ₹16.29 lakh crore, with growth almost 11 percent in the year just ended but not resulting in commensurate tax buoyancy.

The problem is how the money is spent. In 2024-25, the total revenue receipts were approximately seventy-eight percent absorbed by salary, pension and interest payments and in 2025-26, the share of salary, pension and interest payments was about seventy-seven percent of the total revenue receipts. Three rupees in four are “committed” before one line item of development expenditure is approved. For instance, while the state's tax revenues have indeed increased from around ₹47,000 crore in 2020-21 to ₹77,000 crore in 2023-24, the state's “deficit” has been widening as the difference between the tax revenues it earns and what it should earn continues to grow.

With this as the backdrop, the campaign was rolled out with a complete package of ‘Indira Guarantees' - increased honorarium for ASHA workers and Anganwadi staff, widening social security, cash transfer etc. During the first meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday, the chief minister informed the ministers that he had informed the reporters during the campaign in a less polite manner that the cheque book should not be opened till the books were balanced. “Before announcing more benefits, we have to get the economy on track,” he said, a saying that he will hear again and again when any delegation comes into the Secretariat.

A white paper has been commissioned with former cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar as its chairman and Additional Chief Secretary K.R. Jyothilal as convenor and CDS director Veeramani and the economist Narayana as members. White papers in Indian politics have two purposes; they inform you what the previous government did wrong and they keep the new government from having to do anything at all. The first of those is assured. The second is the juicy one!

In the picture, you can't see…

The Sundayguardianlive bulletin said the gathering of 35 subjects at the chief minister's residence was an indication of "tighter coordination. That's one interpretation. A less charitable is that single window government is also single point of failure government. The situation is not new to Kerala successive chief ministers, both the single-party and coalition, have consistently brought subjects to their doors on the grounds that coalition government requires a robust centre. There is nothing wrong with the argument. However, the centralisation which enables quick decisions also entices the aggregation of political costs for every slow decision, and Kerala's litigation-obsessed bureaucratic culture does just that.

The arithmetic at the federal level makes it more difficult. The Union and the states have to maintain a fiscal deficit of three per cent, under the FRBM framework, but the states are chided, and the Centre had run the deficits well above nine per cent in the pandemic years and has not been able to stay below the cap. Kerala gets less than what it consumes in terms of central tax, the Union has been reducing its share of divisible pool and Kerala has been told on the floor of the Rajya Sabha by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that Kerala's fiscal mess is its own fault. Both sides of that argument have a degree of truth, but neither side will pay a pensioner.

Political observers in Kerala, with characteristic patience, read the meaning of the Vande Mataram episode at the swearing-in and the chief minister's decision to swear the oath under his full name Vadassery Damodaran Menon Satheesan. They do give you some indication of the people the new government is trying to woo. They don't tell you who pays for the Indira Guarantees.

The first hundred days

The budget will be released next month and it will be the first real litmus test. Look out for three things. First, if the welfare promises are sequenced, they can be paid in bites as revenue conditions improve, as opposed to being flat commitments. Second, whether the white paper will lead to a genuine plan to restructure public sector undertakings, some of which have been operating for years as employment programmes under the guise of businesses. Third, does the chief minister really have thirty-five departments or is it a case of the inevitable centralisation of powers which will be a quiet swap in six months as was in Thiruvananthapuram in the past?

The easier sum was the Arithmetic that got a hundred and two MLAs in the benches of the UDF in May. It is the maths of running a state of 35 crore population, per-capita income of almost ₹5,200, HDI of 0.860 and debt pile of ₹5.44 lakh crore that will be the one to determine whether Wednesday's portfolio order will be remembered as the day a careful new government took charge or as the day one man got more than any one desk can carry.

The most obvious image is the Kerala government's Government Secretariat building in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, where the government does business. A reader-friendly version of this is available on Wikimedia Commons at this link: Kerala Government Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram on Wikimedia Commons. Images released under Creative Commons or public domain can be used freely provided they are credited to the source these images are available in Wikimedia Commons.