Kozhikode (Kerala): The Congress party on Friday called Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s claims about the development of Kerala under him as nothing but a bluff, and also accused him of trying to derail the probes in several scams.
Speaking to the media here, Leader of Opposition said, “In order to get away from the scams, Vijayan’s master act is to announce non-existent new projects and inaugurate incomplete projects. Then he comes with the stock statement that the opposition is preventing development of the state. We wish to know what development has taken place under Vijayan. Everything is a bluff and he blames us for everything,” said Chennithala.
“Today the scene is, the Vijayan government is trying to use state government organisations to prevent the ongoing probe by the national agencies. Yesterday, what Kerala saw was a drama in front of the CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s house, where the Enforcement Directorate was undertaking a raid.
“The state police and the officials of the Kerala State Commission for Child Rights arrived at the place to see how best they can prevent the ongoing raid. All know that the present chairman of the Commission was appointed after overlooking other highly qualified candidates and, hence he is duty bound to Vijayan to come and create a scene at the place of the raid. The ED officials were only doing their job as per the rule of law,” said Chennithala.
He also pointed out that Vijayan was using an emotional card, especially when it comes to the ‘Life Mission’ housing project, which has now been identified as a corrupt deal.
“When the national agencies started to ask for the documents of the Life Mission project, Vijayan said it was an attempt to thwart a project which will benefit the poor and the homeless, but when the State Vigilance came and took away important files of the project, Vijayan is silent. In the name of development, all that is happening in Kerala is corruption, which has never been witnessed in our state,” added Chennithala.
“Yet another, attempt to prevent the ongoing probes was the decision of the Ethics committee of the Kerala Assembly to take on the ED. Such a thing is unheard of, but Vijayan and the Speaker P.Sreeramakrishnan joined hands and everything happened at breakneck speed. On November 3, CPI-M legislator gave a complaint against the ED and on November 5, the action also came out. The meeting of the Ethics committee was preponed and this is happening when certain issues we had raised several months ago before the same committee are yet to be taken up,” said Chennithala.
