Serious trouble has erupted in the NCP’s Kerala unit over the alleged land and lake encroachments by its Transports Minister Thomas Chandy with a major section launching a signature campaign to demand his resignation and party action against him forcing party supremo Sharad Pawar to instruct senior State leaders to be present in New Delhi on Friday for discussing the situation.
Presidents of eight of the 14 district NCP committees and seven State office-bearers have reportedly informed the anti-Chandy campaigners in the party about their readiness to put in their signatures in the memorandum to be submitted to the Central leadership demanding the Minister’s resignation.
The State NCP has seen the eruption of trouble in the particular situation where the position of Chandy, a billionaire businessman, has become extremely untenable with inquiries yielding enough evidences to convincingly substantiate the allegations of land and lake encroachments and misuse of public funds for private purposes against him.
Chandy has already made it clear that he will not resign as Minister unless Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan instructs him to do so. The CPI(M) leading the ruling lDF has taken a position that the Chief Minister need not ask the Transports Minister to resign until irrefutable evidences come up against him after details inquiries.
A preliminary report submitted by Alappuzha District Collector TV Anupama to the State Government has confirmed that Chandy had encroached and reclaimed several acres of the Vembanad lake around his Rs 150-crore tourism facility, lake Palace Resort in Alappuzha district’s Kuttanad, the Assembly constituency he is representing.
Also, evidences in the form of satellite images have come out to prove that Chandy had illegally constructed a road through paddy fields/wetland to his resort. He is accused of using the official funds of certain MPs for constructing a road to the facility. He is also facing the charge of encroaching two acres of lake around his waterfront house at Chilavannur in Kochi.
Chandy was inducted into the Kerala Cabinet on April 1 exactly a week after senior NCP leader AK Saseendran resigned as Transports Minister following the eruption of a dubious sex scandal based on a honey-trap sting operation by a TV channel against him. Saseendran and Chandy are the only Assembly members the NCP, a minor lDF constituent, has in Kerala.
As per reports, the moves against Chandy within the NCP are sponsored by supporters of Saseendran, many of whom are still keeping suspicions about the circumstances that had led to his resignation. They are alleging that Chandy had taken control of the party in all senses using his money power and even the central leadership is not willing to act against him.
The NCP’s representation in the State Assembly will end – most probably for the entire term of the present Government – if Chandy’s resignation becomes inevitable. His supporters are arguing that the group war in the party should not lead to such a situation.
Sources expected Pawar also to put forward such a suggestion at Friday’s meeting.
Pawar will hold discussions on the Kerala situation with Chandy, Saseendran and TP Peethambaran, national general secretary presently holding the charge of State NCP president. According to Peethambaran, no urgent meeting of the State committee is required at this juncture. He claimed that there was no clarity still in the allegations against Chandy.