The pressure on Kerala’s Congress-led United Democratic Front piled up further on Thursday as a vigilance court in Thrissur ordered the police to investigate allegations that the Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Electricity Minister Aryadan Muhammed had been paid bribes to support a solar-panel firm.
The government has already been undermined by the resignations of two ministers in recent weeks after they were accused of having accepted bribes by bar owners relating to licensing issues.
Thursday’s court order is the latest in a series of events that were kicked off in June 2013, when the police arrested Saritha S Nair and her partner Biju Radhakrishnan on charges that they duped clients out of lakhs of rupees after promising to install solar panels for them or offering them shares in large solar farms. After receiving the money, they would disappear.
Initially, their victims were hesitant to complain because Nair and Radhakrishnan had boasted to having high-level connections that reached all the way to the chief minister. The case assumed political dimensions after it was found that some members of the chief minister’s personal staff and his bodyguards had been in close touch with Nair. Chandy sought to put an end to the controversy later in June 2013 by removing two personal aides and a bodyguard and ordering a judicial investigation into the racket.
However, two years later, in December 2015, Radhakrishnan claimed to a judicial commission headed by retired high court judge Justice G Sivarajan that Chandy and other ministers had received both bribes and sexual favours from Nair. He claimed to even have video footage to prove his allegations.
Charges denied
Though Nair herself has denied that she had sexual relations with 72-year-old Chandy, she alleged that she had paid a bribe of Rs.1.9 crore to the chief minister and Rs.40 lakhs to Electricity Minister Muhammed.
Thursday’s court order enthused the Opposition as well as Chandy’s rivals in the Congress because a similar direction from the same court had led to the resignation on January 24 of Excise Minister K Babu. The minister had been accused by bar owner Biju Ramesh of taking a bribe of Rs.10 crores for to keep licence fees steady for 2014-’15.
However, hours after the Thrissur court’s direction about Chandy and Muhammed on Thursday, the Opposition’s enthusiasm faded a little when the High Court stayed the order against Babu. The High Court said that vigilance court judge SS Vasan had shown unnecessary haste in ordering the case. The court also found impropriety on the part of the judge in ordering the FIR even as a petition seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the bribe charges against Babu was under its consideration.
This High Court order energised Chandy’s supporters as the vigilance court judge had ordered the FIR against the chief minister and the power minister without even a preliminary examination of the allegation. The judge had passed the order on a petition filed by social activist PD Joseph on the basis of a statement Nair made to the Justice G Sivarajan panel the day before.
Chandy, who was touring north Kerala when the order came, has returned to Kochi for consultations with legal experts on filing an appeal against the order. People close to him said that he and his Muhammed will personally file the appeal on Friday, just as Babu had done.
The chief minister claimed that the allegations against him were part of a conspiracy hatched by the opposition in league with the bar owners to discredit his government and prevent the United Democratic Front from coming to power in the next assembly elections.
Intra-party rivalry
The chief minister’s supporters heaved a sigh of relief after KPCC president VM Sudheeran and the party high command came to his rescue by ruling out the need for Chandy’s resignation at this stage. However, it is worried about a rival camp, which has been trying to gain leadership of the party before the state elections, due in another three months.
Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who is the group’s chief ministerial candidate, has not attempted to defend Chandy, though he rejected the opposition demand for the chief minister’s resignation. Leaders of the rival group say that it may not be easy for the party to go to the people with several ministers facing corruption charges.
They are waiting for the court verdict in the appeal to be filed by the chief minister and the report of the solar panel, which is expected before the election, to decide their course of action. They apparently do not want to precipitate a crisis now since it could force Chandy to recommend the dissolution of the assembly.
Whatever be the outcome, the solar scam and the bar bribery case are likely to be crucial factors in the assembly election. The Left Democratic Front, which was lagging behind in a pre-poll survey few months ago, is gearing up to extract maximum mileage out of the scandals.
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