Kerala Congress (M) leader and Government Chief Whip P.C. George on Wednesday went back on his decision to quit his post, but turned his ire against Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan for the alleged shortcomings in conducting the solar scam cases and several other prominent cases now pending before the Supreme Court.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr. George said he had expressed his desire to resign nearly a week ago, but his party leadership had refused to give its permission on the grounds that the Government Chief Whip’s post, along with two ministerial slots, were allotted to the party under a UDF pact. He said KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala had also told him that the Congress did not hold the view that he should resign.
Mr. George said if anyone should resign, it should be the Home Minister who was dillydallying not only in handling the solar scam cases, but also the Data Centre case, in which former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Nandakumar, who was alleged to be a middleman in the deal, had been arraigned. He said he had filed a case in the High Court seeking a CBI probe into the data centre deal. He had withdrawn the petition after the Cabinet took a decision to hand over the case to the CBI. The High Court refused to stay the Cabinet decision on a petition filed by Nandakumar, who later went in appeal to the Supreme Court. The apex court quashed the High Court verdict. He said he approached the Supreme Court seeking a vacation of the stay. The court sought the State government’s opinion on this. But for the last six months, the Home Department had not filed its response. He had broached this topic several times with the Chief Minister and the Home Minister, he said.
Mr. George criticised Congress MP P.T. Thomas for levelling “wild charges” against him to the effect that he had mediated a discussion between Mr. Mani and CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and E.P. Jayarajan, MLA. The party leadership had denied this allegation earlier, but Mr. Thomas persisted with it. “There were some people in the Congress who were hell bent in creating a loathsome image of the Chief Minister,” he said.
