It was no secret that P T Thomas was Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's most vehement critic. It even seemed that Thomas derived some secret delight in provoking Pinarayi Vijayan.
Once in 2016, angered by Thomas's unceasing tirade against him in the Assembly for "illegal transfers", Pinarayi said Thomas was suffering from delusions ('sthalajalabhramam'). Generally, Pinarayi's tactic has been to ignore Thomas's infuriating provocations.
Last January, when the Assembly was gripped by the gold smuggling scandal, Thomas had rammed into the Chief Minister. He called him "underworld don", suggested he was a dimwit, questioned his Communist credentials and dragged Vijayan's daughter and other family members into the controversy.
The Chief Minister was evidently stung. In the whispery tone that people use when they are badly stunned, Pinarayi asked: "Is this some ground where you sing foul songs (poora pattu)." Otherwise, he chose to ignore the Congress leader's belligerence.
However, last June when the Muttil timber smuggling issue was raging, Thomas hurled a stinging allegation that Pinarayi just could not afford to shrug off as nonsense.
It was June 8, and Thomas was demanding an immediate suspension of all Assembly proceedings to discuss timber smuggling in Wayanad. His words were both pungent and sarcastic. "At a time when the whole of Kerala was under police supervision, how did these timber logs walk from Wayanad to Ernakulam? How many check posts along the way had closed their eyes? Did these things happen without the government's knowledge," Thomas kept hurling one question after the other.
He was essentially trying to drive home the irony of the smugglers transporting over 200 cubic metres of rosewood from Wayanad to Perumbavoor in Ernakulam in February this year when COVID controls were still in place.
Then he pointed the gun straight at the Chief Minister. “These timber smugglers are no ordinary people. They have been implicated in a number of fraud cases before. It was our honourable Chief Minister who was supposed to inaugurate the website of Mango Mobiles (said to be owned by these smugglers) in Ernakulam. But on the morning of the inauguration, we heard that the police had arrested these people right from the inaugural venue. The Chief Minister, therefore, didn't have to do the inaugural honours. Isn't the depth of their fraud clear from this," he asked.
Leave alone the Chief Minister, not even the easily provoked CPM backbenchers uttered a word.
But the Chief Minister's was just tactical silence. Next day, on June 9, towards the fag end of the day's proceedings when finance minister K N Balagopal was supposed to reply to the House, the Chief Minister stood up.
He said certain members were using the immunity of the House to level baseless allegations. "Yesterday, P T Thomas had spoken about the inauguration of the Mango Mobiles website and the arrest that had taken place before the inauguration. But he said that without giving the name of the Chief Minister. This inauguration that Thomas had referred to happened on February 24, 2016. I was not the Chief Minister then," Vijayan said. "By sharing just half information, he must have thought he could push me into a shadow of doubt," he added.
The Chief Minister then exhibited that sly delight that Thomas had when he was at his provocative best. "Thomas might have got some special glee in forcing me to expose who the real Chief Minister was," he said, suggesting that Thomas had an axe to grind with the former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The internal equations within the Congress were at a flux at that point.
The Chief Minister then said ideally the member should apologise for misleading the House. Thomas refused. When the ruling benches began to heckle him, Thomas sat unmoving in his seat, his lips tightly pursed like a boy who adamantly refuses to pay heed to the taunts of his classmates.
As it turned out, Thomas's silence was also tactical. The very next day, he called a press conference at the media room of the Assembly, and produced a photograph of the Chief Minister shaking hands with one of the accused in the Muttil timber smuggling case. "After seeing this picture, do you think I am the one who should apologize," he asked reporters.
Thomas stuck to his earlier charge. He said the website inauguration was not in February 2016 as the Chief Minister claimed but on January 22, 2017. "The Chief Minister had stayed at the Ernakulam Guest House on January 21, the day before the inauguration. Though the inauguration was scheduled for 9 am on January 22, it was called off following an intelligence warning," Thomas said.
After the inauguration fiasco, Thomas said the accused gave an advertisement of their company in the CPM's mouthpiece. "Following this, the Chief Minister shook hands with them at a function in Kozhikode," Thomas said. "It is up to Kerala to judge why a Chief Minister shook hands with an accused after this tainted person gave an ad to the party's mouthpiece," he said.
Till date, the Chief Minister has not bothered to contradict Thomas.
