Bar hotelier Biju Ramesh has accused the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of shielding K.M. Mani who risked criminal prosecution on suspicion of having accepted bribes from the Kerala Bar Hotel Association (KBHA) to lobby for the restoration of invalidated two-star bar licences.
Mr. Ramesh, who is the de facto complainant in the case, told The Hindu that there was no need to read any particular motive into the allegation, which three Malayalam TV channels broadcast almost simultaneously on Monday.
Nevertheless, he appeared to have stirred up a controversy at a time when Mr. Mani was reportedly edging closer to the LDF, and the High Court had set a deadline to finalise the bar case. Mr. Ramesh’s infamous muckraking on television had spawned the controversy and eventually caused the resignation of Mr. Mani.
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Charge against Kodiyeri
Mr. Ramesh alleged that CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had asked him to prove the accusations that had unleashed a political firestorm in the run-up to the Assembly elections in 2016. Mr. Balakrishnan believed such proof would bolster the campaign against the UDF and see the LDF to power.
In such an eventuality, the LDF would restore the bar licences annulled by the UDF. However, the LDF did not honour its word. Bar licences remained cancelled, he added.
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Mr. Ramesh said he also felt cheated that the investigation in the bar bribery case had proceeded at a plodding pace after Jacob Thomas quit as director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB).
The Vigilance had not questioned any new witnesses or analysed audio recordings he had submitted as evidence. The agency had not identified the voices or heard those willing to testify against Mr. Mani. It had only attempted to discredit proof already available on record.
Mr. Ramesh is currently a leader of the AIADMK in Kerala.
He had run on the AIADMK Assembly ticket in Thiruvananthapuram and lost. Mr. Ramesh’s transformation in 2016 from a reclusive liquor businessman to a television news favourite was nothing less than dramatic. The chain of events he unleashed had eventually precipitated a political crisis in the UDF with Mr. Mani distancing himself from the front and opting to sit as an independent block in the Assembly.