Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has been a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly for over four decades now, but he has participated in legislative work, other than when piloting bills as a Minister in different governments, only once.
The revelation comes from none but Mr. Chandy, who admits that when it came to legislations, his contribution is confined to that one instance in the early ’80s when he was called upon by the then Chief Minister K. Karunakaran to prolong the discussion on an amendment bill by two hours.
Mr. Chandy recalls that the discussion on the bill was about to be concluded and the only amendment left from the ruling side was that from Congress legislator P.V. Sankaranarayanan. The only option was to move an amendment that contradicted Mr. Sankaranarayanan’s stand. “Once I moved the amendment, the Opposition latched on it, seeing a sharp division in the Congress. Little did they realise our game plan,” a smiling Mr. Chandy said while inaugurating a function held here on Tuesday to mark the third death anniversary of former Minister T.M. Jacob.
The Chief Minister said the normal practice for the United Democratic Front (UDF) leadership was to leave everything to Mr. Jacob whenever the Assembly took up a bill. “We were confident that he would handle any unforeseen situation. In that sense, he stood apart from all of us,” Mr. Chandy said.
Food and Civil Supplies Minister Anoop Jacob, former Speaker K. Radhakrishnan, K. Muraleedharan, MLA, Kerala Congress (Jacob) chairman Johny Nelloor, among others, addressed the function, where KC (Jacob) vice chairperson Daisy Jacob presented the T.M. Jacob Memorial Trust’s awards for best parliamentarian to P.C. Vishnunath, MLA, and the awards for best reporting of the Assembly proceedings by the print and visual media to B.V. Pavanan (Kerala Kaumudi) and Sreedevi Pillai (Manorama News) respectively.
