What are the chances of a state ruled by a communist government, where strikes and shutdowns are part of the industrial routine, bagging an investment from a big multinational automaker? Very slight. So, how did deal?

                On June 29, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. signed a deal to set up a digital innovation hub in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The digital hub will be a research and development facility that will be shared by the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, a Franco-Japanese strategic partnership. Nissan’s digital hub will function as the nerve centre of the company’s research in electric and automated vehicles. The state government will allot 30 acres in the first phase and another 40 acres in the second phase. This is the first digital hub of Nissan coming up globally.

                Ruled by communist governments for long, Kerala has a strong trade union culture which few multinational manufacturers would find encouraging. Oracle Corp of the US was the last multinational company to set shop in Kerala seven years ago.

                How did the Kerala government convince Nissan?

                It all started with a Keralite manager of Nissan. A few tech professionals in Thiruvananthapuram hosted Antony Thomas, Nissan’s chief information officer, at a Christmas Eve dinner in 2017, according to a Mint report. Thomas also had communist background which helped. He was an official of a pro-Left student’s union during his college days in the city, says the report. On the request of those who hosted Thomas, Congress MP from Kerala  wrote to Nissan. According to the report, on February 25, Tharoor met Thomas, who was back in town to help with his son’s Class 10 board exam, and discussed the Nissan investment.

                When a video conference was held with Nissan officials, Tharoor's knowledge of French played a key role. According to the report, the head of the Nissan team was from France and Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, talked about Kerala’s advanced socio-economic indicators for an hour in French. CM Vijayan invited the Japanese team home and served them homemade, says the report

                Vijayan also sought help of BJP’s Kerala leader and Union minister of state for information technology KJ Alphons who immediately flew down for a breakfast meeting with the Nissan team to show how opposition too was cooperating.

                Though Tharoor's French and Vijayan's fish curry helped swing the deal, the some of the real factors were existing talent pool in IT and engineering, airport connectivity, cost effectiveness, quality of life, social amenities, lack of traffic problems, among other things. The decision was also based on positive feedback from the successful IT companies at Technopark where the Nissan hub would be located.

                Nissan’s digital innovation hub will host a team of engineers and scientists who will be initiating research & development (R&D) work in artificial intelligence, cognitive analytics, machine learning and other digital technologies. On setting up operations the company is expected to generate 3000 direct and multi times indirect employment opportunities. This campus will be named as Nissan Knowledge City.

                “With Nissan’s strategic engagement, we are confident that we will be able to rope in a host of IT companies also to our state”Technopark CEO Hrishikesh Nair told ET.