The Kerala NCP on Tuesday decided to make businessman Thomas Chandy, one of its two members in the State Assembly, its Minister in the CPI(M)-led lDF Government in the place of AK Saseendran, who had resigned on Sunday as Transport Minister after facing the charge of indulging in obscene conversation with a woman over the phone.
“The opinion that came up unanimously (at a meeting of the party’s high-power committee) was that the Cabinet berth that has been allotted to our party should be given to Thomas Chandy,” State NCP president Uzhavoor Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. “Saseendran was the first person to propose Chandy’s name at the meeting,” he said.
The NCP leadership’s decision came a day after State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan stated that the NCP had the right to decide on the person to be inducted into the Cabinet in the place of Saseendran despite the confusion prevalent in the CPI(M)’s central leadership over the NCP’s indecision on the association of its lone legislator with the BJP in Goa.
Vijayan said the NCP decision to make Chandy its Minister would be formally conveyed to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after getting the Central leadership’s approval. However, a senior NCP source said that conveying the matter to the Chief Minister and discussing it within the lDF were just a matter of formality as the party had already taken the decision.
The State NCP chief also told newsmen that the meeting decided to stand solidly behind Saseendran in the matter of the allegation against him. “The Government has announced a judicial inquiry into the allegation. We will inform the concerned authorities about the party’s demand that the probe should be completed in a time-bound manner,” Vijayan said.
Five-time MlA Saseendran resigned as Transport Minister on Sunday afternoon after a newly launched TV news channel telecast an audio-clip, which it claimed was a taped conversation between the NCP leader and a woman, in which he was heard making sexually explicit comments to her. However, he claimed that his resignation was in no way an admission of guilt.
Immediately after landing at the Thiruvananthapuram airport from Kuwait where he has business interests, Chandy, NCP MlA from Kuttanad, told newsmen that he was prepared to succeed Saseendran in the lDF Cabinet. “The position belongs to NCP. There is no need to give the charge of Transport to anybody else when we have people capable of handling it,” he said.