By Nanditha Subhadra
Kochi: In a dazzling display of political clairvoyance that would make Einstein question relativity, the Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mahila Morcha has achieved the impossible: holding a rival alliance accountable before it even exists. While most mortals wait for governments to form before complaining about broken promises, these intrepid women have smashed through the space-time barrier to demand immediate implementation of the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) election promise of free bus travel for women.
The grand spectacle unfolded on May 15, 2026, across KSRTC buses from Kozhikode to Kottarakara. Scores of determined activists boarded stationary and moving vehicles, folded their arms with revolutionary zeal, and declared themselves exempt from purchasing tickets. When perplexed female conductors—armed only with electronic ticketing machines and basic common sense—politely asked for fares, they received a masterclass in ideological firmness.
“The UDF promised free travel from May 15!” thundered the protestors. “We demand our zero-fare tickets now!”
The conductors, representing the cruel tyranny of objective reality, could only reply: “Ma’am, the machine doesn’t have an option for ‘Promises from a Cabinet That Doesn’t Exist’.”
Indeed, the designated Chief Minister, V.D. Satheesan, was probably still finalizing the pleats of his mundu for the swearing-in ceremony scheduled for May 18. The new government had not taken oath. No cabinet existed. No executive orders had been signed. No ghostly circular had floated down from the Secretariat. Yet here was the BJP’s women’s wing, staging a high-voltage agitation against an administrative vacuum.
The Great Ticketless Crusade, as historians will no doubt call it, reached its zenith inside buses where ordinary passengers clutched their very real tickets and watched in silent awe. The protestors accused the invisible, non-existent UDF cabinet of “cheating the public.” It was a protest against a political ghost—phantom governance at its finest.
When journalists had the audacity to introduce logic into the proceedings and inquired how an unsworn government could possibly issue orders, the response was a profound, almost spiritual silence. Questions about central fuel prices or cooking gas costs were met with sudden, intense interest in the passing scenery outside the bus windows. Selective temporal outrage, it appears, has its limits.
Even the BJP’s own leadership seemed bewildered by this avant-garde performance. Senior state leaders reportedly convened emergency meetings to declare the KSRTC stunt a “massive mistake.” State BJP Chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar, displaying the survival instincts of a seasoned politician, claimed complete ignorance of the event, as if the entire episode had occurred in a parallel universe he had wisely avoided.
In the end, after police and KSRTC staff gently reintroduced the concept of chronological order, the brave warriors deboarded. But they left behind a glorious legacy: proof that in Kerala politics, hatred for one’s opponents need not be constrained by petty details like “existence” or “democratic timelines.”
As Kerala prepares for the actual government to take shape, one thing is clear. The Mahila Morcha didn’t just board KSRTC buses—they boarded a time machine. And in this new era of pre-emptive protests, we can only wait with bated breath for the next logical step: agitating against election promises from 2031.
