Amid furious leftist agitation demanding the resignation of Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy over his alleged involvement in the infamous solar scam, his position grew weaker on Sunday night with a photograph showing him with con woman Saritha S Nair, one of the main perpetrators of the scam, appearing in the media.
The photograph, which demolished his claim that he did not know Saritha and that he had never met her, showed Saritha as whispering something in his ears at the venue of a public programme at Kadaplamattam in Kottayam, his home district, on January 14 last year. Chandy had said on the floor of the Assembly that he had never met Saritha.
Allegations had come up from several quarters that Saritha had made the Chief Minister’s office the headquarters of her fraudulent operations with his blessings and the help of some of his close aides, one of whom was presently behind the bars, but he had denied these with the claim that he had never met the con woman.
M Sreedharan Nair, one of the several victims of Saritha’s racket, had told the court that he had handed over to her Rs 40 lakh for the installation of a solar power plant at Palakkad, after getting assurances on her business directly from Chandy at his office in her presence on July 9, 2012. However, the Chief Minister had denied this also.
“Now with this picture out in the public domain, the Chief Minister cannot any more say that he had never met Saritha or had not known her,” said CPI(M) legislator TM Thomas Isaac. “It has also been proved that he is a liar as he had lied on the floor of the House about this. The sooner he vacates the Chief Minister’s chair the better,” Isaac added.