Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan has said that the outcome of the Assembly elections in north India should serve as a warning for Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his United Democratic Front (UDF) team.
Inaugurating an indefinite ‘siege’ in front of the Chief Minister’s official residence here on Monday, Mr. Achuthanandan said Mr. Chandy would do well to step down, owning responsibility for the solar scam before women in Kerala also contemplated picking up brooms to sweep him and his government out, as had been done in Delhi by a political party which was hardly a year old.
In every Delhi constituency where Mr. Chandy had campaigned, his party had lost by margins above 50,000 votes, Mr. Achuthanandan said.
The Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) would not give up its stir until Mr. Chandy quit and a meaningful inquiry into the scam was conducted.
The Opposition had launched the stir for a judicial inquiry into the solar scam and Mr. Chandy’s resignation in August. It had suspended its siege of the Secretariat when Mr. Chandy agreed to order a judicial inquiry.
However, the inquiry ordered by him covered neither him nor his office. Mr. Chandy’s attempt was to take cover under the judicial probe. The LDF would not allow Mr. Chandy to get away with such foul play, the Opposition leader said.
Addressing the LDF workers, CPI Legislature Party leader C. Divakaran said there was anger among the general public about the LDF’s decision to call off the Secretariat siege in August. The Opposition had decided to call off the stir trusting the Chief Minister to keep his word on inquiring the solar scam, he pointed out.
Although the Left Democratic Front (LDF) stir was billed as a ‘siege,’ it ended in two hours after the police removed the leaders and workers led by CPI(M) Legislature Party deputy leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, LDF convener Vaikom Viswan, RSP leader N.K. Premachandran, Congress(S) leader Kadannappally Ramachandran, and Kerala Congress leader V. Surendran Pillai, among others.
The LDF activists arrived in front of the Chief Minister’s residence in a march that began from the Raj Bhavan area.