Chaos rules Kerala Assembly over Life mission case

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Assembly on Tuesday witnessed acrimonious scenes after Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan took on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the controversial Life Mission case corruption case, presently under the Enforcement Directorate scanner.

Kuzhalnadan, a former supreme court lawyer is a first time Congress legislator and he sought a discussion in the Life Mission case, which was denied by the State Local Self Government Minister M.B.Rajesh.

Declining the request, Minister Rajesh said that the present motion sought for discussion is nothing but an old wine in an old bottle with an old label.

"Three years back this case was brought to the attention of the Assembly by a Congress MLA who is not in the House as he was defeated in the previous election by over 15,000 votes. This case has got nothing to do with the government as this Life Mission project for houses for the poor is being built by a UAE base organisation and the construction was handed to a private party by them. Hence, the government has no role, as they brought in the money also," he clarified.

But Kuzhalnaden was in no mood to relent and slammed Vijayan over Swapna Suresh being given a plush job with the alleged knowledge of the CM.

"The situation today is such that the right hand of Vijayan- his former principal secretary is in the jail and the person who is always on his left side- C.M.Ravindran - assistant private secretary, failed to appear before the ED on Monday. The chat messages between Swapna Suresh (prime accused in the gold smuggling and the Life Mission cases) and Sivasankar and Ravindran reveals everything and this is there in the remand report of Sivasankar," he accused.

Sivasankar has said that Vijayan wanted a job to be given to Swapna Suresh, he added.

The Chief Minister lost his cool when Kuzhalnaden said everything was known to Vijayan and that they all even had a meeting in his official residence regarding it.

At this, a livid Vijayan said, "Don't lie... I have neither met anyone nor have I asked anyone to be given a job. Just because this is the Assembly, don't think you (Kuzhalnaden) can utter anything."

Hitting back at the chief minister, Kuzhalnaden stated that he was not speaking out of imagination but is ready to place the remand report of Sivasankar which contains the chat messages.

Soon, Law Minister P.Rajeev intervened and said baseless allegations should not be aired and asked him to place the papers on record.

Kuzhalnaden immediately got up and said if the Speaker agrees, he is ready to place the remand report on the table of the house. He questioned Vijayan for not taking action against Swapna and others for levelling what he thinks are "baseless" allegations.

Soon, the House was adjourned briefly, and when it reassembled things were no different. Vijayan pointed out that allegations are being levelled without any evidence which is against the rules of procedure and asked if the Speaker is not hearing all of it.

Then came demands from the treasury benches to expunge all what Kuzhalnaden spoke referring to the remand report. Speaker A.N. Shamseer said he will examine and decide.

With the Speaker disallowing the motion for adjournment, Leader of Opposition V.D.Satheesan then got up and said that the opposition will stand with Vijayan to bring out the truth in the allegations of bribery in the Life Mission case.

"The situation of corruption in this case is as high as 46 per cent of the money for the project has been given away as bribes and I fail to understand why the Vijayan government is trying to protect the corrupt. If you say your hands are clean, then why are you fearing a CBI probe? The Vigilance (state) just cannot probe this case as a foreign agency is involved. The government should not think that they can keep everything under the carpet even when all are aware of a secret tie-up and hence the CBI is being kept away," said Satheesan and walked out of the House.