The ruling CPI-M’s efforts to corner veteran legislator P C George in a sexual assault case came a cropper late Saturday as a Trivandrum court released him on bail within hours after he was arrested following a complaint filed by the solar scam fame Saritha Nair.
Nair had stated in her complaint that George had tried to sexually molest her and used obscene language against her in the Government Guest House at Thiruvananthapuram last February. When George was produced before the judicial first class magistrate, his advocates moving the bail application told the court that the alleged incident took place in February 2022 in the Government owned Guest House which had all security system in place and the delay of more than five months in filing the complaint remained a mystery.
Furthermore, Saritha Nair, while speaking to reporters as recently as last month had given a clean chit to George. She has filed a series of such complaints against political leaders and it has to be noted seriously, said the counsels appearing for George.
George, who came out of the court, said that the arrest was a conspiracy hatched by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. “Vijayan is upset and shocked over the disclosures made by the Opposition MLAs in the legislative assembly that his wife and daughter too were engaged in improper activities misusing the position of power. These charges are in addition to the disclosures made by the gold smuggling scam accused Swapna Suresh,” said George who declared that he would take the fight against Vijayan to its logical conclusion.
Within hours of the court releasing George on bail, K Sudhakaran, president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, demanded that the chief minister file a defamation case against Swapna Suresh for the allegations she had levelled against Vijayan. “Swapna through her disclosures has cast aspersions on the Chief Minister of Kerala. If Vijayan does not file any defamation case against Swapna, the KPCC would file it because the allegations have been made against our own chief minister,” said Sudhakaran.
The arrest of George and its fiasco come at a time when the CPI-M is already in the dock for the vandalization of Rahul Gandhi’s constituency office at Kalpetta and the desecration of the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi along with attacks on the Congress offices in the State.
Though the ruling LDF acceded to the demands of the Opposition for a discussion on the revelations made by Swapna against the chief minister, it brought out more unanswered questions in the House itself. A visibly upset chief minister warned the Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnaadan against dragging the names of his daughter Veena Riyaz and wife Kamala into controversies. “You better keep away from dragging the names of persons who sit in their homes to the Legislative Assembly. If you continue doing this, I don’t know what would be the repercussions,” said Vijayan while answering to the allegations.
“The Chief Minister seems to have lost his cool on many occasions. The Opposition’s disclosures that his daughter and wife were part of the high level corruption has upset the chief minister,” said P Sujathan, chronicler of Kerala’s politics.
The failure of the Police in arresting the persons behind the attack on the CPI-M’s State head quarters on Thursday night and the security blanket thrown around the people in venues visited by Chief Minister Vijayan have put the LDF Government in a shadow. “The chief minister is emblematic of a mobile internal emergency in the State. His motorcade and the security arrangements are frightening,” said K K Rema, MLA, widow of T P Chandrasekharan who was murdered by CPI(M) leaders.