Businessman Thomas Chandy is expected to be sworn in as the NCP’s new Minister in Kerala on Saturday in the place of senior party leader AK Saseendran, who resigned as Transports Minister on March 26 after a TV news channel aired an audio clip in which he was heard making sexually explicit remarks to a woman over the phone, though the channel has apologised for enticing and entrapping him through a honey trap sting operation carried out by its “investigation team”.
Though the State NCP had decided on Tuesday itself to let Chandy succeed Saseendran in the ten-month-old CPI(M)-led lDF Government, confusion prevailed in the party on Friday morning as a section in the party wanted Saseendran to return to the Cabinet since the channel’s admission on Thursday night had ‘exonerated’ him.
The confusion ended with the lDF, in an emergency meeting on Friday morning, taking a decision favouring Chandy, after State NCP president Uzhavoor Vijayan handed over to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan a letter of approval from his party’s central leadership and Chandy himself held discussions with State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
Pinarayi Vijayan, as per reports, was not in full agreement with the idea of inducting Chandy, a magnate with varied business interests in Kerala and Kuwait, into the leftist Cabinet. However, what worked in favour of Chandy was the general feeling that it was inappropriate for Saseendran to remain in power when a probe was on into the sex-talk charge against him.
The constituent parties of the lDF took a position that there was no need to delay the swearing-in of Chandy.
On Friday morning itself, Saseendran made it clear that he did not want to return to the Cabinet though the situation that had led to his resignation had changed after the admission made and apology offered by the TV channel’s CEO.