Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has warned the UDF leaders against over-zealously pursuing the SNC-Lavalin case and said it will boomerang on them.
Replying to an adjournment motion in the Assembly on Thursday, Mr. Vijayan said that if anyone resolved to trace the conspirators behind the case, it would reach the UDF itself. An attempt to find out who was behind the three former Kerala State Electricity Board officials whose discharge had been set aside by the High Court would only reach the doors of the UDF, he said.
Tracing the evolution of the case, Mr. Vijayan said a former Chief Minister who was not a member of the Assembly at present had warned a Congress high-power committee meeting against pursuing the case and said that it would be traced back to him. Still, some leaders were keen on pursuing the issue on the strength of the findings in a Comptroller and Auditor General report on the Lavalin deal. A Vigilance inquiry could not find anything against him, but once the Left parties repealed support to the UPA I government, it was decided to rake up the issue and entrust the case with the CBI. He was made a scapegoat to target the CPI(M), Mr.Vijayan said.
The CBI could not garner any substantial evidence but was forced to probe it to fix him. The structural deficiencies in the case still remained unaddressed. Right from the start, he was sure that the case would not stand legal scrutiny and was not concerned about its outcome. The party stance that it would fight the case legally and politically had also been proved correct, Mr. Vijayan said.
