Demands for resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for his alleged involvement in the infamous solar scam intensified on Tuesday. Protest demonstrations by leftist organisations demanding Chandy’s resignation and the extremely violent way in which the police faced them, turned the streets of State capital Thiruvananthapuram into a virtual battlefield.
Within hours of expressing his willingness to resign at an emergency UDF meeting, Chandy firmly ruled out his resignation in the Assembly. The Opposition accused him of lying to the people and the Assembly after he said no CCTV recording was available of his office where he had met a ‘victim’ of the solar scam perpetrators allegedly along with con woman Saritha S Nair.
Unable to face the questions and criticisms levelled by a furious Opposition over the infamous solar scam, the Congress-led UDF Government of Kerala virtually ran away from the State Assembly on Tuesday with the Speaker adjourning the House sine die in the name of noisy Opposition protests.
Indicating that Kerala would now fall into the grip of agitations, the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF called for a dawn-to-dusk State-wide hartal on Wednesday as part of its stir to force Chandy to resign over the scam and in protest against Tuesday’s police action against protesters, including the use of stun grenades against Opposition MlAs, in Thiruvananthapuram.
At the emergency meeting held at his official residence in the wee hours of Tuesday after the scam victim’s disclosures, his Cabinet colleagues and leaders of Congress and UDF decided that there was no need for him to resign. On Tuesday, Defence Minister AK Antony asserted in Kochi that there would be no change of rule
in Kerala.
On the streets of Thiruvananthapuram, VS Achuthanandan, 89-year-old Opposition leader in the Assembly, developed restlessness after a stun grenade lobbed by the police exploded near him during a sit-in by leftists MlAs. He was later shifted to the hospital after he developed respiratory problems.
Scores of leftist workers and leaders, including CPI’s Parliamentary party leader and former Minister C Divakaran and district CPI(M) secretary Kadakampally Surendran,
suffered injuries when the police used stun grenades, tear gas shells, lathis, water cannons and even stones against the demonstrators.
Divakaran was admitted to the hospital after he fell unconscious following the explosion of a police stun grenade near him when he was taking part in the dharna held by the leftist legislators demanding Chandy’s resignation at the gates of the State Secretariat after the Assembly was adjourned sine die.
A meeting of the Opposition lDF on Tuesday afternoon registered strong protest against the police action on demonstrators. The meeting called for a probe into the use of grenades against MlAs. lDF leaders said that the Congress leaders should understand that the protests against Chandy could not be quelled using the police and goondas.
The protests and the violent police response had started early Tuesday morning. It is said that the police were unprepared for meeting the situation where several demonstrations were taking place simultaneously at different centres. Many policemen also suffered injuries in the stone-pelting by the protesting leftist youth and student outfit activists.
Traffic on almost all the main roads in Thiruvananthapuram city remained diverted or suspended for almost all day on Tuesday due to the demonstrations and the police’s security arrangements. The city had witnessed similar violence on Monday also. Thousands of policemen had been additionally deployed in the capital city in the context of the protest marches.