Ramesh Chennithala, Kerala’s Leader of Opposition, unleashed a no-holds barred attack on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his council of Ministers on Friday for ‘massive corruption and favoritism’ associated with the LIFE Mission of the Government.
LIFE Mission was one of the flag ships programmes launched by the LDF Government which came to power in 2016.
It envisaged houses for all poor people in the State who do not own even a cent of land and also a job which could sustain their families without poverty.
But the Mission finds itself enmeshed in corruption and misdeeds as the Union Government on Thursday asked the State Government to furnish the reasons behind violation of procedures in its implementation. It has been disclosed by those arrested in the gold smuggling scam that the Kerala government had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE based Red Crescent to build houses as part of LIFE Mission.
The contract was signed without informing the Government of India as the rules are cleat that no foreign contracts should be signed by the States and foreign agencies without the concurrence of the Centre.
The NIA probing the Gold Smuggling Scam had seized Rs one crore from a bank locker operated by Swapna Suresh, a kingpin of the smuggling racket. She had told the NIA that it was the commission she received from Unitac Energy Solutions, the company which was given the Rs 20 crore contract to build housing complexes for the poor.
“The Kerala Government awarding the contract to Unitac as per the directives of Red Crescent shows that there some underhand dealings in the project meant for the poor. The project was awarded to Unitac by Minister for Local Self Government A C Moideen. He was operating as per the directive of Vijayan,” alleged Chennithala.
He demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Minister Vijayan and minister Moideen owning up moral responsibility for the corruption.