The Congress leadership on Thursday countered the State Cabinet decision to file criminal and Vigilance cases against former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, his former ministerial colleagues and a few party functionaries in the solar scam case by picking holes in the basic premise on which they were taken.
Apart from announcing that the party and the UDF would confront the LDF government’s decision politically and legally, Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, at a press conference in New Delhi, made a formal demand for a copy of the G. Sivarajan Commission report on the solar scam.
Mr. Chennithala highlighted five basic points to substantiate his contention that the Cabinet decision to pursue the solar case was politically motivated and was driven by cheap political vendetta and a reflection of the political degeneration of the CPI(M).
The Chief Minister, in his press conference announcing the Cabinet decision, did not mention about the commission’s findings on basis of its six-point terms of reference.
He did not divulge what was the commission’s findings related to the question whether the government had suffered any financial loss and whether the State government had issued any work order out of turn to the indicted company or individuals leading to any financial losses.
Relevant portions
The commission had been tasked to probe the solar scam from 2005 and the Chief Minister was silent on whether the commission had probed the developments between 2006 and 2011 when the LDF was in power. The Chief Minister had highlighted only those portions in the report that was of interest to the State government, he alleged.
Mr. Chennithala referred to interviews given by the main accused Saritha S. Nair to media establishments in which she had stated that a CPI(M) leader had offered her ₹10 crore to trap Mr. Chandy and K.C. Venugopal. In both these cases, the CPI(M) did not issue any denials, Mr. Chennithala said in support of his contention that further steps on the solar scam was politically motivated.
There was considerable confusion on the contentious letter written by her in terms of its page numbers and its veracity. The accused herself had stated that the letter which was in circulation earlier was a fake one.
