In what is being alleged as an indication of the irrepressible urge of the Congress to justify corruption, Kerala’s UDF Government led by that party is planning to grant a position with Cabinet rank to R Balakrishna Pillai of the Kerala Congress (B), whom the Supreme Court had in 2011 awarded one-year rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case.
The Congress-led State Government is also being accused of utter disregard for political morality due to its reported plan to re-induct into the Cabinet, Pillai’s son KB Ganesh Kumar who had resigned as Forest Minister on April 2 after he was charged with indulgence in domestic violence by none other than his (now-estranged) wife Yamini Thankachi.
The UDF, which is facing unprecedented problems within and from outside, had at a leadership meeting, last week offered Pillai to make him chairman of the Forward Communities Development Corporation. The UDF also told him that the position would carry the rank of a Cabinet member.
Sources in the UDF said that the decision to grant a job with Cabinet rank to Pillai was taken by none other than Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who is heading a Government surviving on a wafer-thin majority. For over the past one year, Pillai had been at loggerheads with the Government for its refusal to sack his son Ganesh Kumar as Minister.
Though Pillai’s initial reaction to the offer was that it could not have any “mouth-watering effect” on him as he had been a Cabinet member several times, sources in his party now say that he would accept the offer if Chandy is prepared to re-induct his son into the Cabinet, a position that is diametrically opposite to the one he had been sticking to till a week ago.
In February, 2011, Pillai became the first-ever senior political leader and former minister in the State to be sent to jail for corruption when the Supreme Court awarded him one-year imprisonment in a case pertaining to graft in a contract awarded for the repair works of a hydel power station back in 1982 when he was the State Power Minister.
Within four months since the apex court passed the verdict, the UDF Government assumed charge in the State and this was followed by controversies over the Government’s allegedly out-of-the-way efforts to help Pillai stay out of the prison. For this, he was allowed hospitalisation for an illness which he was reportedly suffering from.
It is now said that Chandy has offered Cabinet rank to Pillai out of the compulsion to keep the NSS, outfit of Hindu upper caste Nairs with which he is closely associated, happy. However, NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair has already said that the outfit had never asked for such a position for Pillai.
Pillai had been at loggerheads with the UDF, CM Chandy and the Congress party for their refusal to honour his demand for sacking his son Ganesh Kumar as Minister for disregarding party instructions. Even after Ganesh Kumar’s resignation over the domestic violence issue, he had not changed his approach to him.
Pillai is now saying that he could take the offer of the Government if Ganesh Kumar is re-inducted into the Cabinet. However, this is not easy for Chandy as stiff objections have come up to the proposal from the Congress party.