Kerala’s ruling CPI(M) and its Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seem to be determined to protect NCP’s Transport Minister Thomas Chandy, who is facing serious charges of land and lake encroachment and misuse of public funds for private purposes, to the maximum possible extent despite an official report finding merit in the allegations and an ongoing probe against him for usurping land belonging to a temple body even as demand for his resignation has intensified.
The CPI(M)’s State secretariat decided the other day that the lDF Government it leads need not seek Chandy’s resignation until Alappuzha District Collector TV Anupama, who confirmed irregularities by Chandy in her interim report, filed her final report. The party’s position is that he could not be victimized on the basis of mere allegations and media reports.
The CPI(M) and Pinarayi have surprised Kerala’s society – and many in the party itself – with the generosity they are showing to Chandy, a billionaire businessman, while they had refused to take such a soft approach in the case of party’s central committee member EP Jayarajan who was forced to resign as Industries minister last October over nepotism charges.
Jayarajan, who has now been exonerated by the State Vigilance, had the other day aired displeasure at the way the party and some of its organs had treated him. Similarly, Pinarayi had not bothered to wait for completion of any probe to accept the resignation of NCP leader AK Saseendran as Transport minister in March over an alleged sexual harassment scandal.
Chandy was inducted into the lDF Cabinet on April 1 as Transport Minister in the place of Saseendran five days after his resignation. Saseendran and Chandy are the only Assembly members of the NCP, a minor lDF constituent. The Transports Minister is also facing an allegation of grabbing two acres of lake at Chilavannur in Kochi.
While Chief Minister Pinarayi on Saturday refused to respond to newsmen’s queries about the District Collector’s report against Chandy, former chief minister and nonagenarian Marxist VS Achuthanandan said sarcastically, “It (Chandy’s resignation) is a matter to be decided by the “nobles”. They should be considering keeping such people with them as a matter of pride.”
Anupama had the other day reported to the Government that there was substance in the charges against Chandy that he had annexed and reclaimed several acres of the Vembanad lake adjacent to his Rs 150-crore tourist facility, lake Palace Resort in Kuttanad in Alappuzha district, and had constructed a road to the resort through misuse of public funds.
Chandy said on Saturday that there was no situation that warranted his resignation. “There is no (concrete) charge against me. I am not that kind of person who will do such things (as land-and-lake grabbing). I haven’t grabbed even a cent (of lake or land),” Chandy said, adding that the District Collector had prepared the report without hearing his version.
Chandy is also facing a Revenue Department probe for illegally possessing 34.6 acres of land belonging to a temple body, Mathur Devaswom, near his house at Nedumudi in Kuttanad. The Minister has so far refused to return the land despite court instructions in this regard. “I don’t like to talk about the Mathur Devaswom land,” Chandy said on Saturday.
The CPI(M) has adopted a position that one Paul Francis, who had sold the Mathur Devaswom land to the Minister, was responsible for forgery of documents relating it and not Chandy. Observers say that the CPI(M) knows “pretty well” that it cannot protect Chandy for long but its plan is to delay his resignation till it becomes inevitable.
Meanwhile, Opposition parties intensified their demand for Chandy’s expulsion or resignation from the Cabinet. “Pinarayi is showing some kind of mild approach to Chandy that was not seen in the case of even his own partyman EP Jayarajan. Chandy is a corrupt person and corrupt persons cannot remain in power. He must go,” said State Congress president MM Hassan.
State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan accused Pinarayi of keeping a relationship with Chandy that went beyond politics. “The Chief Minister continuously claims that his Government would not tolerate corruption. The entire people are now convinced that this is just a statement intended at winning applause,” Kummanam said.