Minister Thomas Chandy to go on leave from Nov 1

Thiruvananthapuram: Embattled Transport Minister Thomas Chandy, who faces allegations of land encroachment, has applied for a 15-day leave citing health issues.

As per reports, the NCP leader will be on leave from November 1 as he would be flying abroad for treatment.

The move comes in the wake of Alappuzha District Collector T V Anupama planning to submit to Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan the report on encroachment allegations against Chandy on Thursday.

As per the procedures, the charges of a department are given to another minister if its minister is going on a leave for more than seven days. When Thomas Chandy entered a long leave in the past for business purposes, it was Water Resources Minister Mathew T. Thomas who looked after the Transport department. He is likely to be asked to do the job this time as well.

Chandy has denied the findings of the Collector’s preliminary report submitted earlier saying that there was no need for him to encroach backwaters and the allegations were meant to mislead the people.

"I have not encroached the backwaters. There is no need for me to do so," Chandy had said, rejecting the demands of the Opposition for his resignation.

He, however, said that he had done landfill on 110 meters of a narrow path to provide access to the land owned by him in Kuttanad in the district, another allegation against him.

Chandy, representing Kuttand in Alappuzha district in the state assembly, has been under attack from the Congress-led UDF and BJP ever since the allegations of encroachments surfaced

The Alappuzha Municipal Council had last month quashed the tax concession being given for Chandy’s Lake Palace resort situated at Kuttanad in Alappuzha district from 2004 onwards

Chandy became a minister in April after replacing party nominee A K Saseendran, who had quit the cabinet after a purported audio clip of him speaking in sexual undertones to a woman emerged.