Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had to let go of his principal secretary M Sivasankar under great pressure. The big question facing the CPM and the government is where will the Customs and National Investigation Agency (NIA) inquiries against Sivasankar lead and what they will reveal.
Sivasankar was suspended nine days after he was removed from the Chief Minister’s Office due to his alleged links with Swapna Suresh, a prime accused in the gold smuggling case, and five days after the government announced an inquiry led by the chief secretary.
There are many in both the CPM and the CPI who believe the chief minister should not have taken so long to act against Sivasankar.
There are also those in the Left leadership who think that the government would not have been forced to be so defensive had there been no delay in announcing Sivasankar’s suspension, a department-level inquiry against him and a police inquiry against Swapna.
Sivasankar left the office after telling the chief minister that he was innocent. The chief minister decided against acting hastily after Sivasankar said Swapna was only a friend and that he had done nothing wrong.
But as allegations continued to mount against Sivasankar, the CPM demanded that the impression that the government was protecting Sivasankar needed to be changed. CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran, who had wanted Sivasankar removed after the Sprinklr controversy, also reiterated the demand to the CPM leadership.
CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who was in Kannur, spoke to Kanam on the phone after he returned to Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
When Sivasankar was questioned by Customs, Pinarayi assured the party that he would act on the department-level report against the former bureaucrat. He announced his decision to suspend his former principal secretary just before the CPM state secretariat was to meet on Friday.
Now, it is for the Customs to find out if Sivasankar had any links to gold smuggling and for the NIA to ascertain if that was used for terror funding.
Whatever the outcome of the investigations of the central agencies, Pinarayi Vijayan is now convinced that the inquiries conducted by his own government has found that Sivasankar, whom he considered to be a highly trustworthy bureaucrat, is at fault.
He must be wondering if the intelligence system and the party-level information gathering system to know when the secretariat is in disarray have failed.
Along with Sivasankar’s suspension, the other important decision was to conduct an inquiry into the appointments made by Sivasankar.
The chief minister is convinced that other improper appointments, besides that of Swapna Suresh, were made in the IT department, which is under him, when Sivasankar was the secretary.
The CM's changing stance
When Sivasankar’s alleged links with members of the Trivandrum International Airport smuggling racket emerged, the chief minister’s initial response was that his former principal secretary’s only mistake was that he had friendly ties with Swapna and that he had not done anything unlawful.
But, given the allegations against him, he was being removed from the Chief Minister’s Office, Vijayan had said.
Even when he announced a two-member committee to look into Sivasankar’s role amid growing allegations against the bureaucrat, Vijayan maintained that the government did not have any reason to suspend him.
He, however, hinted that he would take action when Customs officials summoned Sivasankar for questioning. “Anyone who has committed a mistake will not be protected,” he said. “Let the committee submit its report,” he said.
Finally, on Wednesday, he said the report of the two-member committee of Chief Secretary Vishwas Mehta and additional chief secretary (finance) will be expedited and strict action will be taken if it finds Sivasankar guilty.
Vijayan suspended Sivasankar on Thursday after the committee submitted its report.