Has LDF let Sunny Joseph off the hook for brother-in-law's appointment?

The adjournment motion in the Assembly on mass transfers and postings of government employees after the UDF won the elections had an anticlimactic ring to it.

The issue that was expected to push the House into turmoil on Wednesday was mentioned only as an afterthought. It was widely anticipated that the LDF benches would weaponise the appointment of Benny Thomas as the additional private secretary of Electricity, Environment and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sunny Joseph to retaliate against the UDF for having troubled them in the past with nepotism charges. Benny Thomas is the brother-in-law of Sunny Joseph.

As it turned out, CPM member V Joy who moved the adjournment motion on Wednesday came to the 'family' appointment very late in his speech, long after he had run out of time and Speaker Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan was asking him to wind up. It was as if Joy had kept his weakest argument for last. 

Sunny Joseph did not bother to respond either. Even Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan, who spoke after the minister, did not seem to find the appointment relevant. Not a word on the  brother-in-in-law getting posted in the minister's office came from Pinarayi.

Benny Thomas's universal appeal as a local leader in Kannur has probably held back the LDF from wielding his appointment as a political weapon against the UDF government. Not only was he Kannur District Congress Committee president but he was also president of Ulikkal grama panchayat twice.

Under the LDF rule, ministers E P Jayarajan and K T Jaleel were taken to task by the opposition for the appointment of relatives to top posts in PSUs.

Jayarajan was asked to step down just months after the LDF came to power, and Jaleel was indicted by the Lok Ayukta for appointing his cousin K T Adeeb as the general manager of the Kerala State Minorities Development Finance Corporation (KSMDFC), and he finally had to resign.

On Wednesday, when faced with the allegation of mass transfers, Electricity, Environment and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sunny Joseph armed himself with what Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said when he encountered the same set of charges in June 2016.

"Between February and May this year, there have been 52 retirements. There were 30 transfers of officers at the level of under secretary and above. The transfer of one special secretary will involve 14 other officers getting relocated," the minister said, and added: "These are not my words but Pinarayi Vijayan's when he was responding to an adjournment motion moved by Congress MLA P T Thomas in June, 2016. The then Chief Minister even said Thomas was out of his mind to even raise such an issue."

Sunny Joseph said that this time the number of retirees between January and May was 200. "Then there were promotions and the changes necessitated by the appointment to the personal staff of ministers," the minister said. 

He also hinted, and without apology, that there were indeed certain political transfers. "There have been officers who have been in the same seat for too long that they have grown roots. In the interests of smooth governance, they had to be uprooted," Joseph said.

The minister was responding to an adjournment motion moved by CPM's V Joy on what he described as a ruthless government transfers that did not spare even the seriously ill and those whose retirement were just days away.

Nonetheless, the minister did not respond to a specific charge Joy raised. The CPM's Varkala MLA said that transfer orders were issued long before the new government was sworn in on May 18. Joy held up documents to show that the General Education Department had transferred six officers on May 5, a day after the results were out, based on a letter submitted by NGO Association Thiruvananthapuram South district secretary Mohammad Rauf on May 4. 

Joy alleged that all transfer orders were issued before May 18 and called it "shameful". "Never before has such a thing happened in Kerala's history," Joy said. Pinarayi also wanted to know on what authority these officers had issued the transfer order when it was a caretaker government that was in place. "Action should be taken against them," he said.

This LDF charge went unanswered.