When the bar scam had broken out in Kerala on October 31, it had given a big jolt to the State's Congress-led UDF Government. However, in the last two weeks the scandal seems to be petering out mainly due to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's skills for political survival and the disunity in the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF.
Sources close to Chandy say that any further proceedings in the Vigilance enquiry the Government had ordered into the scam are unlikely. Also, the Government does not intend to bring in any other agency to probe it, they say. The only ray of hope remaining for the Government's critics in this matter is a petition which the High Court is yet to admit.
The scam pertains to the allegation levelled by Kerala Bar Hotels Association’s working president Biju Ramesh that Finance and law Minister KM Mani, the senior-most member in the Cabinet, had demanded a bribe of Rs5 crore from bar owners and had taken Rs1 crore to help them in getting licences renewed for the 418 bars lying closed since March 31 for lack of facilities.
The allegation of bribery against Mani soon gathered the dimensions of a serious political scam with charges coming from various quarters to the effect that he was not the only Minister to take bribe from the bar owners and that there was a political conspiracy behind the charge against Mani, chairman of the Kerala Congress (M), third biggest constituent of the UDF.
Observers now say that Chandy and his Government are sure to come out unscathed from the bar scam in the same manner as it had happened in last year's solar scam in which charges were made directly against the Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues, associates, former ministers, a then Union minister, MlAs and several Congress leaders.
"Chandy had survived the solar scam by ordering a namesake judicial inquiry and with the help of the ambiguity in the confused Opposition's approach to it," said a Congress leader belonging to Chandy's rival camp. "He is using the same tactics here also. He just ordered a Vigilance 'verification' which is sure to reach nowhere with the Opposition standing divided," he said.
Giving credence to the Congress leader's theory, Biju Ramesh, his associates and fellow bar owners who had given their statements on the Mani affair to the Vigilance have said that the investigating officials had just asked them some questions and did not demand any evidence or documents to prove the allegation.
Observers say that the scam has actually helped the Chief Minister to assert his supremacy in the groupism-ridden State Congress and the Government. It has also helped him to keep Mani, whom the CPI(M) wanted to lure to the left camp with the promise to make him chief minister as part of a strategy to sabotage the Chandy Government, on a leash, they say.
The ambiguous stand of the Opposition, particularly the CPI(M), is sure to become crucially helpful for Chandy to ensure the burial of the bar scam, it is said. While the official CPI(M) leadership demanded a court-monitored probe, Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan favoured a CBI probe and the CPI, major front partner, called for a judicial probe.
The Opposition was also unable to cash in on the issue by failing to hold a united agitation against the Government. The lDF even failed to hold a meeting on the subject despite a demand from the CPI following which that party held a stir on its own on Wednesday, accusing the CPI(M) of supporting "corrupt" UDF Minister Mani.
"This is not the first time the left has helped Chandy to survive a scam. During the solar scam days, they had launched a big agitation by laying siege to the State Secretariat but suspended it within 36 hours without achieving anything and raising the suspicion that they were playing the adjustment politics," said a disgruntled former Marxist theorist from Kochi.