More black flags than bouquets welcomed Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy into the State on Saturday morning on his return from Manama, Bahrain after receiving the prestigious UN Global Award for Public Service on Thursday, thanks to the charges against him and his office over the ‘solar scam’ involving con woman Sairtha S Nair and several of his aides.
What should have been a motorcade drive for Chandy from the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Cliff House, his official residence, literally became a secret run as the police diverted his vehicle through safer roads to avoid youth outfit activists waiting to block his way at every junction wielding black flags and demanding his resignation.
Chandy’s home-coming after becoming the first chief minister in the country to receive the particular UN award was marred by intense protests particularly because of the arrest on Friday of Tenny Joppen, his former aide, over the solar power scam in which he misused the Chief Minister’s office to cheat a Konni resident of `40 lakh in association with Saritha Nair.
At the crucial moment, even the Congress, going presently through one of its worst faction wars, refused to declare solidarity with him. “Those who have sowed should reap. The law should take its own course,” was how State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala, leading the ‘I” group of the party opposing Chandy, reacted to the new developments.
Chandy landed at the Kochi airport from Bahrain at 3.30 am on Saturday where he was received warmly by Cabinet colleagues and Congress leaders and workers from his camp but there were no ‘I’ group leaders. The protests began a few hours later with a group of black-flag-wielding DYFI activists trying to barge into the guest house in Aluva where he was taking rest.
The Chief Minister landed at the Thiruvananthapuram airport from Kochi at 10.45 AM to be given a rousing reception by leaders and workers of the ‘A’ group of the Congress he was heading. The euphoria ended when he exited the passenger area as a group of DYFI men awaited him with black flags outside the cargo complex.
From that moment on, Chandy was to see protesting young men, belonging to DYFI and the Yuva Morcha, trying to block him at every junction, shouting slogans demanding his resignation, on his way to Cliff House. left with no other option, the police took a circuitous but safer route to the State Secretariat instead of taking him home.
However, Chandy tried to put up a bold face while telling newsmen at Aluva that he would not protect those guilty in the solar power panel scam “whoever they are”. Assuring that that the police probing the scam would face no external interference, he said, “Those guilty will be punished. But it is equally important that those who are not guilty should not be punished.”
Meanwhile, a court in Pathanamthitta remanded Chandy’s former personal assistant Tenny Joppen in 14-day judicial custody in the case pertaining to duping one Sreedharan Nair of Konni by making him pay Rs 40 lakh to Saritha Nair at the Chief Minister’s office promising to install a solar power project for him in Palakkad.
The FIR registered over Sreedharan Nair’s complaint had said that he had handed over Rs 40 lakh to Saritha Nair on the statement of Joppen that the Chief Minister himself would have met him had he not been busy over some other urgent matter.