The CPI(M) has called for Kerala Finance Minister and Kerala Congress (Mani) leader KM Mani’s resignation from the Oommen Chandy Government.
This is against the backdrop of the allegation that liquor bar owners had paid him a ₹1-crore bribe to get the ban on 418 bars lifted. CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday called for a court-supervised investigation into the accusation that Mani had taken the bribe. “If Mani is not willing to quit, he should be sacked,” Vijayan said after a meeting of his party’s secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday, which discussed the bribe allegation.
Kerala Bar Hotels and Restaurants Association president Biju Ramesh had alleged last week that some bar owners had paid ₹1 crore to Mani as the first instalment of the ₹5 crore he had demanded to get the 418 bars reopened.