The State Cabinet decision to order Vigilance and criminal inquiries into the solar scam on the basis of the G. Sivarajan Commission recommendations comes at an inconvenient time for the Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF) it heads.
For the Congress is going through a reorganisation process, the Opposition front has called for a hartal on October 16 in protest against the ‘únpopular policies’ of the Central and Sate governments, and Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala is embarking on a one-month-long “padayottam” from Kasaragod on November 1. It is not sure at this point of time how the new scenario would play out for the party and the front in the days to come, but it seems that the developments have caused some bewilderment in the party and the front.
The Congress has already termed the batch of decisions as “political vengeance, political vendetta and politically motivated”. If there is one thing that was evident, but unsaid in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s press conference and in the press statement he issued, it was that further action in the solar scam had a political dimension to it.
The pin-pricking part of the Cabinet decision is that senior leaders who were or are close aides of Oommen Chandy and belonged to his faction are the targets. Former Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Electricity Minister Aryadan Mohammed and former legislators Benny Behnan and Thampanoor Ravi have been put in the dock and brought under the purview of either a Vigilance or criminal investigation.
Though he has put up a brave face, it may prove disadvantageous for Mr. Chandy, as the Congress is going through a reorganisation process that decidedly includes an internal rearrangement of political equations in tandem with changes in New Delhi. With a majority of his supporters now coming under the scanner, it remains to be seen how much the solar scam will pan out against Mr.Chandy and haunt the Congress and the UDF.
The Congress has convened its political affairs committee to discuss the counter-action against the government decision. The UDF is scheduled to meet on October 18, but it appears it would be convened earlier. The UDF leadership might try to tweak its proposed hartal on Monday.
The Cabinet decision to order a probe into certain references in the commission report on the basis of new evidence in old cases and new probe into fresh complaints, along with the one to treat sexual gratification as an act of corruption, also assumes significance.
Mr. Vijayan as State secretary of the CPI(M) had led a strong agitation demanding a probe into the solar scam and Mr. Chandy’s resignation as Chief Minister. The highlight of the agitation was the blockade of the State Secretariat. It was stamped as a failure for the abrupt manner in which it was called off. It was, therefore, not surprising that no sooner had he got the 1,250-page report of the Sivarajan commission that probed the solar scam than Pinarayi Vijayan the Chief Minister took emergent action, if only to prove the vindication of the LDF agitation.
