Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is facing severe credibility crisis over the scandal relating to his alleged links with a con woman arrested recently for cheating people in the name of a solar power business even as a large section in his own party is still refusing to defend him and the Opposition lDF is all set to launch an intense stir demanding his resignation.
Chandy has so far refused to confirm or deny reports that con woman Saritha S Nair and her ‘ex-husband’ Biju Radhakrishnan had been in constant contact with him directly and through his aides saying that a probe has been ordered into the allegations but he will have no choice but to give some plausible explanation on the charges in the State Assembly when it meets on Monday.
With his ‘unofficial’ secretary in Delhi, Thomas Kuruvila, confirming that Chandy had met Saritha at the high-security Vigyan Bhavan and Congress MP MI Shanavas admitting that he had arranged for a meeting between Chandy and Biju last August, it will be impossible for the Chief Minister to totally deny reports on his links with them.
According to sources in the AICC, the scandal has seriously affected the trust the party high command had put in him. “The high command had so far considered Chandy as a party Chief Minister with impeccable integrity. The scandal has affected that impression. He will have to bring up solid proofs of his innocence
to restore that confidence,” said a source.
Senior leaders of the Congress and other constituents of the nine-party ruling UDF, except the Muslim league, are yet to come forward to defend Chandy openly and this is what is troubling him the most. State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala, his arch rival in the party, did speak in his favour on Sunday but observers view it as a matter of intra-party compulsion only.
The UDF leadership will hold an emergency meeting on Monday at Cliff House, Chandy’s official residence at Thiruvananthapuram, to discuss the crises emanating from the scandal relating to Saritha Nair. The lDF leadership also will be meeting on Monday to decide on the methods of the agitation to be launched to demand Chandy’s resignation.
Chandy was last Friday forced to remove two of his most-trusted aides — Tenny Joppen and Salim Raj — from his personal staff after it was proved that they had held long telephonic conversations with the con woman scores of times before her arrest. Asked whether she had talked with him over the phone, Chandy had tried to exonerate himself by saying, “I don’t have a mobile phone.”
“Chandy does not keep a mobile phone of his own not because of any allergy but because he wants to save himself when controversies connected to phone calls arise,” charged VS Achuthanandan, Opposition leader in the State Assembly, on Sunday. “The UDF Government has become a swindlers’ gang. Chandy has no option but to resign,” he said.
“Nobody expects Chandy to resign over this controversy. He is smarter than that,” said a senior Malayalam journalist, pointing out that he had a history of allegedly forcing former Chief Ministers K Karunakaran and AK Antony to resign. “But the scandal is real serious this time and his stock gimmicks may not work. That is his challenge now,” he said.
Saritha, also known as lakshmi Nair in some circles, and Biju had cheated dozens of people by collecting several crores of rupees promising to install solar power plants and wind farms and offering franchisees of their company. Apparently, they had used their alleged proximity to the office of the Chief Minister for this.
Saritha, facing over 25 cases of financial swindling and cheating, is presently under judicial custody and Biju is absconding. A high-level police team comprising six Deputy Superintendents and headed by Additional DGP (South Zone) A Hemachandran is on a hunt for Biju who is believed to be hiding somewhere in Tamil Nadu.