Smuggling case anti-climax favours CPI over Pinarayi who refused to replace Sivasankar

Thiruvananthapuram:  “It will affect the morale of the top officials”, the Chief Minister had said when CPI suggested removing M. Sivasankar from the position of IT secretary during the Sprinklr controversy being hotly debated.  However, when the gold smuggling controversy hit the CM’s office,  Pinarayi Vijayan did not think twice about  removing him without  any external pressures.

Though Sivasankar had explained the situation before Kanam Rajendran after visiting him at MN Memorial at the time of the Sprinklr controversy, CPI leadership was not satisfied with the official.  CPI had stepped back from the demand, only because the party honoured the policy that ‘CM is the last word in the government’.

CPI has assessed that had the CM heeded to the demand of the allies including them, the government would not have faced such a humiliation in the year in which it faces an election.

CPI also holds that their criticism against the home department was also valid. The CPI cites the failure of state Intelligence which could not alert the government on the wayward life of the CM’s principal secretary.

The CPI is prepared to examine the issue in detail at the state executive committee to be convened here on July 17 if there is a relaxation in the lockdown norms placed in the wake of the new wave of Covid 19 pandemic.

It is resolved that the party will refrain from making public statements on the issue for the time being though the party mouthpiece is continuing its criticism.

As CPM secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan is not in Thiruvananthapuram, the bilateral meeting of secretaries of the two parties is yet to happen.