With neither State Congress president VM Sudheeran nor any other senior party leader coming forward to defend him, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Wednesday gave himself a clean chit in the several scam charges he and his 39-month-old Congress-led UDF Government were facing even as the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF launched an agitation to force him to resign.
“As Chief Minister, I am in the habit of taking decisions and implementing them according to my conscience. But there is no truth in the allegations of corruption which are presently leveled (against me),” Chandy said with regard to the Rs200-crore Titanium graft scam, the 23-year-old palm oil import scam and the Plus II batches and schools allocation scandal.
Talking to mediaperson in Thiruvananthapuram, the Chief Minister claimed that there had been a concerted attempt to project him as an accused in the case pertaining to the alleged corruption in the project for installing a pollution-control plant at the factory of public sector Travancore Titanium Products limited when the court order had actually justified his actions.
“The media can paint me as an accused if they want but everyone knows the truth,” Chandy said. “I am not an accused in the Titanium case. I was not an accused when the case had first come up eight years ago. But the case resurfaced in 2011 when the State was going for an election,” he said indicating that there had been political motivation behind the case.
The Special Vigilance Court in Thiruvananthapuram had last week ordered a fresh Vigilance probe into the Titanium graft case against Chandy, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, Public Work Minister VK Ibrahim Kunju and eight others making it clear that no special sanction was needed to proceed against the Chief Minister or his two Cabinet colleagues.
Regarding the palm oil import scam of 1991 over which the Supreme Court had on Monday made some incisive observations against Chandy, the Chief Minister reiterated that there was no corruption in the import. He said the Cabinet had last year decided to end the probe in the palm oil case after various courts cleared his name.
“The Vigilance had investigated the palm oil case for ten years when the lDF was in power. Even after that I was not made an accused. It was in 2011 that allegations came up against me on the basis of an affidavit of (former Food Minister) Mustaffa,” Chandy said. He said the import of palm oil in 1991 had caused no loss to the Exchequer but had only benefited the State.
Concerning the scandal related to allocation of new Plus II schools and fresh Plus II batches to hundreds of schools without the recommendation of the Higher Secondary Director, which the Kerala High Court scrapped, Chandy said the Government’s only intention was to provide opportunity for higher education for all qualified students.
“I challenge my rivals to prove how there can be corruption in the Plus II allocation. There will be situations when a democratically elected Government will have to take decisions outside the officials; recommendations. Before going out of power, we will ensure that there are enough Plus II seats to accommodate all qualified students,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Opposition lDF, which had failed to topple the UDF Government over the infamous solar scam last year, on Wednesdaylaunched an agitation to force Chandy to resign over the palm oil, Titanium and Plus II scams. Protest marches were taken out to administration centres in all the 14 districts of the State demanding Chandy’s resignation. Inaugurating the lDF march to the district collectorate in Alappuzha, Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan alleged that Chandy and his Cabinet were clinging to power even after receiving scathing criticisms and adverse orders from various courts.