Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday rejected the lDF Opposition’s demand for his resignation over his alleged links with con woman Saritha S Nair and her ex-husband Biju Radhakrishnan, both accused in several cases of financial swindling and cheating in the name of a solar power plant installation business they were running.
“I won’t resign over politically motivated controversies,” Chandy told the State Assembly on Monday amidst the unruly scenes created by a protesting Opposition, which wanted him to step down and order a judicial probe into the entire scam, which has now come to be known in Kerala as Solar Gate. He also rejected the demand for a judicial probe.
In a sharp response to Chandy’s refusal to resign, the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF at a leadership meeting on Monday evening decided to boycott all his programmes in the Assembly and outside. The lDF would organise a protest march to the Assembly on Friday and intensify the agitations being held across the State.
At the same time, the Kerala Police on Monday arrested Biju, accused in several cases, from Coimbatore with the help of the Tamil Nadu police. Saritha was arrested on June 3 as second accused in a case relating to cheating one Sajjad in the name of a solar power plant installation. Biju is the first accused in this case.
The allegation against Chandy was that he and his aides had supported Saritha and Biju in running their bogus business even by giving a certificate in his own letterhead and that he had met both of them in Kerala and Delhi. “I had met Biju but the subject of talk was not their business but his family problems… I haven’t met Saritha Nair,” he told the Assembly.
The Chief Minister said that he was unaware of the fact that Biju was an accused in several serious cases at the time of their meeting. However, observers pointed out that it was a bit strange for Chandy, who was in charge of Home and Vigilance portfolios in 2011, to claim ignorance of the report the police had compiled in 2010.
Chandy was last Friday forced to remove two of his aides from his personal staff for keeping close relationship with Saritha with whom they had had long conversations scores of times prior to her arrest.
The pandemonium in the Assembly, which started with the Opposition demand that its adjournment motion on the subject should be discussed by suspending the Question Hour, continued even after Chandy’s refusal to resign and forced Speaker G Karthikeyan to announce adjournment for the day well before noon.
Chandy said that the woman he had met at the high-security Vigyan Bhavan in last December during an NDC meeting was not Saritha Nair, as Thomas Kuruvila, one of his “unofficial” secretaries in Delhi, had said. He also said that he had not given any recommendation letter to Saritha’s company.
Stating that the Chief Minister was feigning ignorance to protect himself, Opposition leader in the Assembly VS Achuthanandan said that the left would not end its stir till Chandy resigned. Deputy Opposition leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that Chandy , who had started his rule speaking about Haritha Keralam (Green Kerala) had turned it into Saritha Keralam.
“The CM says he had discussed for an hour family affairs with Biju, an accused in many cases. Would he care to reveal what these family affairs wereIJ There are 85 lakh families in Kerala. Would the CM solve all their problemsIJ Kerala wants more direct and sincere answers,” said former minister Mathew T Thomas of the JD(S) who moved notice for the adjournment motion.