Kerala Congress(M) chairman KM Mani, who resigned as Finance and law Minister on Tuesday over his alleged involvement in the bar bribery scam, left State capital Thiruvananthapuram for his home in Pala with a smiling face which probably concealed a heavy heart.
Before stepping out of Prashanthi, the ministerial residence he had been occupying, Mani said he would come back. “Why notIJ” he asked. Quoting Biblical sentences, he said that this was a temporary fall and that God would make him even stronger. On the 167-KM drive, Mani was received by cheering KC(M) workers and slogan-shouting protestors at several points.
Every garland Mani received on his way home was an approval for corruption and the celebration being held on his way was a humiliation to the Judiciary (which had advised him to decide on quitting as minister as per his conscience), said Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan.
Tension prevailed at Adoor, Pathanamthitta as Mani’s motorcade reached there with protesting activists of CPI(M) youth wing DYFI jumping in front of it carrying black flags. In Pala, he was given a grand reception by his supporters late evening but protest demonstrations by the Opposition were carried out there in the morning.
Thanking the residents of Pala, his home constituency, for the support it had provided him throughout his 50-year-long legislative career, Mani said, “I don’t have a world bigger than Pala. It is the people of Pala who are giving me energy.”