Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said that he had met with Sreedharan Nair, aggrieved solar entrepreneur, not once but twice last year.
He said this while replying to Opposition queries in the State Assembly this morning alleging his complicity in the raging solar scam.
One of the meetings took place on July 9, he told the House during zero hour but stuck to his ground that Nair had not discussed solar plant issues.
Nair had only the previous night said that scam accused Saritha Nair and fired member of Chandy’s personal staff Tenny Joppen were also present during his meeting with the Chief Minister.
This had plunged the State Government in a crisis, and saw emergency meetings being held late last night among leaders of ruling Congress-led coalition and ministers on ways to ride it out.
OFFERS TO QUIT
At one of the meetings, the Chief Minister was said to have offered to resign, citing enormous pressure being mounted by the Opposition and law and order situation.
But leaders of the Congress party and coalition partners prevailed on him to stay on citing that complainant Nair had been shifting his positions many times over exposing himself in the process.
In the Assembly, deputy leader of Opposition Kodiyeri Balakrishnan sought to know if Saritha Nair, among prime accused, was also present during the controversial meeting at the Chief Minister’s chamber last year.
Chandy replied he could not confirm since his office was usually swarmed with visitors during working hours.
NO RECORDING
Another member of Opposition wanted to know if the closed-circuit TV images of the wired office of the Chief Minister would be available for viewing to bear this out.
To this the Chief Minister replied that activities in his office were relayed live round the clock on the Web but were not recorded.
Chandy also informed the House that the memorandum of understanding for complainant Nair’s solar plant had been signed much before his their meeting took place.
He said that the Government would not give in to attempts at blackmailing and added that it would face the Opposition moves toward this end politically.
Meanwhile, the capital city saw pitched battles between a heavy posse of police and youth wings of major Opposition parties through the morning.