As a hotelier acting as a pawn in the hands of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has made serious charges of corruption against Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. The timing of these allegations is interesting – Kerala will soon be holding local body polls and assembly elections are just six months away. The bar bribery case that rocked the state is back in the news. There are other scams which too have surfaced in the state as the LDF and the UDF indulge in vendetta politics desperate to win the ensuing polls reports N V RAVINDRANATHAN NAIR from Thiruvananthapuram.
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The vendetta politics being played in Kerala took a surprising turn recently with revelations by a hotelier, Biju Ramesh, against Kerala Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. He claimed that he had paid Rs 1 crore to him when he was Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president for party funds while seeking a favourable decision to reopen 418 bars closed down by the previous UDF government. Chennithala and his wife, he said, had implored him not to name him in the statement he made before the vigilance court in connection with the bar bribery case in 2015.
Ramesh's salvo was fired within days of the Pinarayi Vijayan government framing Chennithala in a vigilance case related to the bribery case.
Incidentally, Chennithala is one of UDF front-runners to the chief minister's seat. While Ramesh has taken on the mantle of a self-proclaimed crusader against corruption, there are few takers for his claims. His selective disclosures in the run-up to local body polls and with assembly elections just six months away are seen as motivated.
Ramesh, in fact, has targeted various politicians in the past too. It was only the other day that in an interview to a popular Malayalam television channel Ramesh had expressed frustration over the government's lack of thrust in probing the bar bribery case in which the late KM Mani, former finance minister, was allegedly involved.
Ramesh had revealed that Mani had accepted bribes to reduce the license fee for these hotels. Moreover, the Kerala Bar Hotel Owners Association had also alleged that Mani had accepted bribes worth Rs 10 crore to reopen 418 bars.
Ramesh's statement that it was after Mani's breakfast meeting with Chief Minister Vijayan that the vigilance was told to go slow over the probe is inconsequential as Mani's Kerala Congress (M), presently led by his son Jose K Mani, had teamed up with the LDF after severing its 43-year-old ties with the UDF.
“Hotelier Biju Ramesh's salvo was fired within days of the Pinarayi Vijayan government framing Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala in a vigilance case related to the bribery case. Incidentally, Chennithala is one of UDF front-runners to the chief minister's seat. While Ramesh has taken on the mantle of a self-proclaimed crusader against corruption, there are few takers for his claims. His selective disclosures in the run-up to local body polls and with assembly elections just six months away are seen as motivated.
Ramesh's statement won't affect the political prospects of the LDF as it was obvious that Jose K Mani was roped into the coalition with the offer of ending the probe against Mani. Jose K Mani himself was facing allegations by solar scam fraudster Saritha Nair that he was one of the many UDF leaders who had sexually exploited her.
Ramesh's statement that Vijayan had diluted the case against Mani has little value when the government is already plagued by a series of scams. The latest is related to gold smuggling involving Principal Secretary M Sivasankar and Swapna Suresh, an IT Park employee under the chief minister's portfolio.
Against this backdrop, political observers believe that Biju Ramesh was a pawn in the hands of the chief minister while selectively targeting Chennitiha.
Political observers believe that Ramesh, a master plotter, has taken care to give the impression that he is striking a balance between the politics of the LDF and the UDF. He wants to create the impression that his sole purpose is to ensure that justice is done even at the cost of his own fortunes.
However, the shadow of the bar bribery case which rocked the Oommen Chandy government in 2015 will continue to plague the UDF. Along with it, the LDF government has taken out the dusty files related to Saritha Nair's sexual harassment charges against UDF leaders. Among those in the firing line include Congress Organising Secretary KC Venugopal, former minister AP Anil Kumar, Congress MP Hibi Eden and BJP's national vice-president AP Abdullakutty. (He was a two-time CPM MP from Kannur before getting ousted for praising Narendra Modi. He was later elected to the Kerala assembly on a Congress ticket).
Biju Ramesh claimed that Jose K Mani had offered him Rs 10 crore to drop the accusation against his father. But the CPM is learnt to have asked Ramesh not to entertain the entreaty. Ramesh's statement came close on the heels of the selective leak of a private investigation report in 2015 that claimed that KM Mani was the victim of a conspiracy to install then home minister Ramesh Chennithala as chief minister. The timing of the leak underlines the fact that Jose K Mani also wanted to teach Chennithala a lesson. These facts point to a new setting between Jose K Mani and Ramesh at the behest of Vijayan.
“Political observers believe that Biju Ramesh was a pawn in the hands of the chief minister while selectively targeting Chennitiha. Political observers believe that Ramesh, a master plotter, has taken care to give the impression that he is striking a balance between the politics of the LDF and the UDF. He wants to create the impression that his sole purpose is to ensure that justice is done even at the cost of his own fortunes.
Chennithala's claim is that no evidence of his involvement was found in the vigilance probe carried out twice in the bar bribery case. Incidentally, in his confidential statement recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC earlier in 2015, Ramesh had not mentioned Chennithala's name. Hence, the state vigilance had not probed his role. Chennithala, meanwhile has sent a letter to Governor Arif Mohammed Khan stating that Ramesh's latest allegations against him were probed by the vigilance earlier and no evidence was found against him. But the names of former ministers K Babu and VS Sivakumar are there.
Meanwhile, Kerala Bar Hotel Owners Association leaders who selectively leaked out sound bytes and telephone call details to stress the claim that they had paid Rs 20 crore to KM Mani during the four years that he was finance minister have rejected all such claims, including that of Biju Ramesh.
The constant retraction of stand by the hoteliers is evidence of their worry about business prospects. Even Ramesh had earlier denied his statement related to the bar bribery case and claimed that he had made the statements under the influence of liquor. But the next day, he wanted a probe into his charges by a central agency.
“Ramesh Chennithala's claim is that no evidence of his involvement was found in the vigilance probe carried out twice in the bar bribery case. Incidentally, in his confidential statement recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC earlier in 2015, Ramesh had not mentioned Chennithala's name. Hence, the state vigilance had not probed his role.
From the beginning of the bar bribery case, the CPM was soft towards KM Mani as it wanted his party to join hands with the LDF. As that has been accomplished, it is a foregone conclusion that the LDF will go to any extent with its politics of vendetta.
This was in evidence when the state police acted against Muslim League MLA from Manjeswaram MK Kamarudeen, who was accused of cheating many of crores, Ebrahim Kunju, another Muslim League MLA and a former PWD minister accused in a case relating to the caving in of Palarivattom Bridge in Ernakulam. All were arrested recently.
It is obvious that God's Own Country needs some healing.
(NV Ravindranathan Nair is a senior journalist based in Thiruvananthapuram. He also writes on environment, culture, society and issues of human interest. Views are personal.)