In a no holds barred attack against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala’s maverick political leader P C George alleged on Monday that the former has become a prisoner of a cabal consisting of invisible wheeler-dealers and fly by night operators.
Addressing the media at Kottayam, George demanded a High Court monitored probe into the large scale felling of trees from the State’s forests. It has been alleged by John Peruvanthanam, environmentalist, that trees worth `1.5 lakh crore has been illegally felled from the forests in the State during the last two years and this has denuded Kerala of its fragile forest cover. “Kerala is ruled by a mafia consisting of a CPI(M) politician, a businessman with links to Jihadi forces and some characters with dubious past. Though Vijayan is the CM of a State, he speaks like the polit bureau member of the party which does not suit his stature. He should learn to behave like a CM,” lambasted George, a 7-term member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. PNS
The last three says saw Kerala witnessing a slanging match between Vijayan and the newly appointed Pradesh Congress Committee chief K Sudhakaran in which both the leaders called each other names and washed a lot of dirty linen in public. The CPI(M) which found itself at the receiving end following a series of disclosures made by Sudhakaran against Vijayan declared on Monday that the party would ignore all future allegations to be made by the former against the chief minister.
George said he fully agreed with the concern of the farmers that some of the trees were hindering the agricultural operations. “But the solution is not in slaughtering the trees and that too the endangered and scheduled species,” said George.