Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has come down heavily on ‘vested interests’ and the right wing media accusing them of trying to belittle the Opposition stir seeking Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s resignation over the solar scam.
Inaugurating a sit-in before the Chief Minister’s official residence by hundreds of women here on Thursday, Mr. Vijayan said the right wing media was living up to its tradition of running down popular agitations for the right causes. It had done so on every single occasion when the progressive sections of Kerala society had come out in the open to secure the basic rights of the people, he said.
The CPI(M) State secretary contended that the State’s progress in all spheres, the condition of the poor, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the minorities in Kerala and elsewhere, were due to the way the people of the State waged struggles for various rights. At times, such struggles might cause inconvenience to some people, but more important was the correctness of the slogans over which such struggles were waged. The Opposition campaign for Mr. Chandy’s resignation was also no different, he added.
Mr. Vijayan said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) was not keen on blocking the road or causing inconvenience to anyone.
The LDF’s plan was to lay siege to the Cliff House gate, but the police had blocked the path and detained the LDF workers at the junction. The decision to lay siege to the Cliff House itself was taken because the government had made a mockery of the judicial inquiry sought by the Opposition.
The inquiry did not cover the Chief Minister or his office. As such, the Opposition had no other option to intensify its agitation, he said.
Earlier, hundreds of women from different parts of the district gathered near the Raj Bhavan and marched to the Devaswom Board junction where they staged the sit-in.
The LDF on Thursday reviewed the impact of its ongoing agitation and decided to continue it with “unprecedented vigour,” said convener of the front Vaikom Viswan.
Wrong portrayal Briefing presspersons after a meeting of the State council of the LDF, he said there has been a concerted effort to portray the agitation as something that violated the human rights of ordinary people and thereby deflect matters from the core issue — which was that the Chief Minister’s office had turned into a place from where fraudsters operated. The Chief Minister was forced by the turn of events in the solar scam to remove from his office three of his aides. It had come to light subsequently that his aides had been involved in criminal activities such as faking documents for grabbing land, he said.
The LDF had launched its stir for the resignation of the Chief Minister to face a judicial probe into his office’s role in the solar scam. The blockade of the Secretariat as part of the agitation was withdrawn by the LDF when the Chief Minister announced a judicial probe, but he “backtracked” on the issue immediately afterwards by refusing to include his office under the purview of the probe, Mr. Viswan said.
