The Opposition has demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for alleged role of his office in the raging ‘solar scam.’
The issue had rocked the State Assembly on two days in a row and forced the Chief Minister to take remedial action.
STAFF REMOVED
Two of his staff members were removed after they were found to have been linked to a husband-wife duo alleged to have swindled crores of rupees from unsuspecting solar panel customers.
One Saritha Nair has since been apprehended and charged in a number of cases of fraud across the State but Biju Radhakrishnan, prime accused and her estranged husband, is still at large.
Depositions to the police have revealed Nair’s links with to those in the corridors of power, including Ministers and even a Union Minister from the State, as also the well-heeled.
Leader of Opposition and Marxist veteran V.S. Achuthanandan on Sunday asked the Chief Minister to resign in the light of revelations.
Plea for PROBE
He also demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter. Chandy should come clean on his links with Saritha Nair since a number of calls were found to have been made to his official number.
Achuthanandan also wanted to know why the Chief Minister did not have a personal mobile phone and why he was reachable only through his staff.
He wondered if the Chief Minister was using his unwired status as ruse to fix responsibility of the criminal deeds on his office staff.
Meanwhile, Pinarayi Vijayan, State secretary of the CPI(M), asked Chandy to put in his papers in the wake of what he described as the dirtiest scam directly involving the office of the Chief Minister.
It behoves the Chief Minister to stand down and face a judicial probe, Vijayan told newspersons here. The State had not witnessed such a well-planned conspiracy involving the high and mighty.
Vijayan ridiculed the choice of an additional director general of police to probe the case since it involved the office of the Chief Minister and more than one of his Cabinet colleagues.
This was not just an instance of massive corruption but also a major economic offence, he added.
The State has a right to know how a couple of dubious entrepreneurial credentials and criminal intent had come to influence the government of the day.