On show at the sunset briefing held by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on January 28, the first this year, was his attempt to position himself as a leader so unlike Oommen Chandy, the former Chief Minister who is now at the helm of the UDF campaign.
Pinarayi Vijayan, the focused benevolent ruler and Oommen Chandy, the unscrupulous politician. Take a look at both of us, Vijayan seemed to say, and then decide who you want to vote for.
He made it seem as if he was merely bowing to the wishes of the victim, Saritha while transferring the Solar Sex scandal to the CBI.
The Chief Minister also hinted that the government, left to itself, had no intention of doing so. "The police probe into the Solar scam, based on the serious findings of the Solar Commission set up by the former UDF government, was progressing effectively," Vijayan said.
Standing by the victim
However, the Chief Minister said the government had no other option but to call in the CBI after the “woman associated with the case expressed dissatisfaction with the police probe”.
The Chief Minister suggested that doing otherwise was both ethically wrong and politically suicidal. “Now, imagine we had not accepted the victim's complaint. Can it in any way be justified if we had ignored a victim's plea? Wouldn't it have invited a lot of criticism,” Vijayan said.
The Chief Minister insisted there was no political vendetta when he was informed by reporters of the charge that he was avenging Chandy for handing over the Lavalin case to the CBI. The previous UDF dispensation under Oommen Chandy, during its last Cabinet meeting in 2006, had decided to transfer the Lavalin case, in which Vijayan was one of the accused, to the CBI.
Chandy's betrayal
While Vijayan refused to accept his decision was politically motivated, he hinted that Chandy's Lavalin move was. “In this case, the government is not a party. We just accepted the demand made by the victim,” Vijayan said. But the UDF government's decision to transfer the Lavalin case to the CBI, according to Vijayan, “was arbitrary”. “They were trying to trap Pinarayi and those close to him,” Vijayan said.
He said that the Vigilance that had probed the Lavalin case under the UDF government had said he had done nothing wrong. “What the UDF government then did was to remove the Vigilance director and immediately after, transferred the case to the CBI,” he said.
Oommen Chandy, too, had admitted that the Vigilance had given Pinarayi a clean chit but said his government had to transfer the case to the CBI as media reports alleged a UDF-LDF underhand deal.
Three probes and an exclusive letter
But Chandy wanted to know why the Pinarayi government had not taken anyone, including himself, into custody in the Solar case even though three top police officials had probed the matter. Pinarayi turned this poser to his advantage, painting himself as someone who does not interfere with the independence of the probe agencies under him. “It is true that, like them, we had not asked the investigating officers to act in a manner beneficial to us. But my understanding is that the probe is progressing well,” Vijayan said.
Chandy had also asked why the LDF government had failed to appeal against the High Court order that wanted certain portions of the Sivarajan Commission report, especially the 25-page letter written by Saritha in which were explosive revelations about senior Congress leaders including Oommen Chandy, expunged.
“The government should have appealed if it had a problem with the High Court’s verdict. Instead, it had waited for long to record the statements of the complainant and register the case,” Chandy had said. Pinarayi responded superficially to this, saying the case would go ahead with or without the letter.
Game of contrast
The Chief Minister would insist that it was only a coincidence that the Solar case was sought to be shifted to the CBI right after Chandy was picked as the face to lead the Congress campaign in Kerala. But such timing has allowed Vijayan to indulge in the politics of contrast.
“I see this Congress decision (of picking Chandy as its campaign face) as good for us,” the Chief Minister said. He said this would only help in making people think why Oommen Chandy was rejected in 2016. “This will only work in our favour,” he said.
