Thiruvananthapuram: Continuing his tirade against what he termed are the the double standards of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, State BJP president K. Surendran called the former a ‘kumbidi’, referring to the role played by Vijayan in the Thiruvananthapuram Airport, now given to Adani Enterprises.
Kumbidi is a hugely popular character played by versatile comedian Jagathy Sreekumar in the 2002 Malayalam film ‘Nandanam’. In the film the character is shown as being present at multiple places at the same time. Surendran says Vijayan is also like him.
“Documents are now out in the airport bidding. On one hand Vijayan is protesting against Adani who has won the auction to take over the Thiruvananthapuram Airport and on the other hand he gave money to Adani’s daughter-in-law,” said Surendran.
On Friday, the Vijayan government approached the Kerala High Court to stay the Centre’s nod to lease out Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to Adani Enterprises.
Earlier this week, the Centre’s decision to lease out the airport under the PPP model for 50 years came, and since then the ruling Left and the opposition Congress are up in arms against the decision of the Centre.
Incidentally it was in February 2019 that the financial bid for privatising five airports in the country was opened and it was won by Adani Enterprises.
The Kerala government had put its bid but Adani won it after they quoted a bigger amount. While Kerala government bid for Rs 135 per passenger, Adani quoted Rs 168.
Surendran revealed that it has now come out through RTI documents that the Vijayan government had given Rs 1.55 crores by way of professional fees to KPMG and Rs 55 lakhs to Mumbai based law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. One of the partners of the firm is the father-in-law of Karan Adani, the son of Gautam Adani of Adani Enterprises.
“Vijayan is the real kumbidi. On one side he launches protests against Adani and on the other gives money to his son’s in-law,” added Surendran.
