After a fairly long phase of relative calm, Kerala is once again set to plunge into political turbulence with the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF and BJP declaring agitations demanding removal from the Cabinet of Finance Minister KM Mani, who is facing charges of taking several crores as bribe from bar owners and “selling” Budget proposals for money to interested sectors.
With the Opposition parties warning the Government against allowing Mani to present the 2015-16 State Budget in the State Assembly and the Government holding fast to its allegedly arrogant position that Mani himself will present the Budget, it is almost certain that protests will reverberate within the House and across Kerala.
A day after Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan warning Chief Minister Oommen Chandy against his plan to allow Mani to present the Budget as Finance Minister, Deputy Opposition leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said on Thursday that the Assembly would witness protests of unprecedented fury if the scam-accused Minister was allowed to do this.
The BJP, which will start its agitations with torchlight demonstrations at Panchayats’ level on Friday and Saturday, will observe a State-wide, dawn-to-dusk shutdown on January 27 to force the Government to sack Mani as Minister even as the Opposition left has decided to launch its anti-Government agitations on February 3 with a “mass march” to the State Secretariat.
“The lDF has decided to boycott all public programmes of Mani. The agitations will continue till Mani resigns as Minister,” said lDF convener Vaikom Viswan after a meeting of the front leaders in Thrissur on Thursday. The left will observe a shutdown in Pala, Mani’s Assembly constituency in Kottayam district, on Saturday.
After a leadership meeting of his party in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, State BJP president V Muraleedharan demanded removal of Mani from the Cabinet, resignation of the entire Government and declaration of interim election in Kerala. Muraleedharan also demanded a CBI probe into the bar scam instead of the current probe by the State Vigilance.
Amidst widespread allegations that the left was adopting a soft approach to the scam-accused Minister, the State BJP chief alleged that the lDF position amounted to protecting Mani. “That is why they have confined their shutdown to Pala. Is Mani the Minister of Pala alone to confine the hartal to that placeIJ” he asked.
Mani, who has presented the highest number of Budgets in Kerala, is facing the charge of taking several crore of rupees as bribe from bar owners for helping them to get bar licences renewed and of collecting huge sums of money as bribe from sectors like gold retailing and rice milling by offering to declare tax benefits to them in his Budgets.
Mani’s position became all the more weak after Biju Ramesh, the bar owner who first leveled the bribery charge against him, handed over evidences supporting his allegation in the form of voice records of discussions, in which bar owners were heard disclosing details of the money Mani had taken from them, to the Vigilance officials probing the scam on Wednesday.
However, Chandy and his Congress party declared total support to Mani even after this development. State Congress president VM Sudheeran, a self-styled anti-corruption campaigner, also supported Mani by slapping a gag order on PCC leaders with regard to statements on the scam after party spokesman Ajay Tharayil said Mani should not present the next Budget.
At the same time, reports coming out from within the Kerala Congress (M), of which Mani is the chairman, suggested that several leaders of that party were of the opinion that it was impossible for him to continue as Minister for long in the new situation. The party’s high-power committee was likely to hold a meeting soon to discuss the scenario, KC(M) sources said.
Meanwhile, the Government on Thursday was unable to explain to the High Court about the status of the probe being carried out by the Vigilance into the bar scam. During the hearing of a plea seeking a court-monitored probe, Advocate General KP Dandapani failed to provide an answer to Justice P Ubaid when he raised this question repeatedly.