The Pinarayi Vijayan government appears to have been caught unawares in the unflattering and somewhat belated political backwash of its contentious decision on the eve of the 2021 Assembly elections to refer accusations of sexual misconduct raised against the late Chief Minister Oommen Chandy by the 2016 solar scam suspect, a woman, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The CBI, which absolved Chandy of wrongdoing in early 2023, purportedly said in a recent court filing that a few Left Democratic Front (LDF) leaders had conspired to implicate the late leader falsely. It was unclear whether the CBI had spelt out the “clique’s” motive.
An online media broke the existence of the CBI’s supposed court document. The supposed legal record is yet to emerge in the public domain. Nevertheless, television news channels and Congress leaders echoed the CBI’s “conclusion” as a given.
Fingers pointed
The brewing political controversy also dragged to its centre Kerala Congress (B) leader K.B. Ganesh Kumar, MLA; a personal aide of his; a well-connected and so far unnamed political go-between; and the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
The Congress insinuated that the “coterie” had coaxed the solar case accused to file the “false complaint at the CMO’s behest”. Mr. Kumar’s aide has since denied the accusation.
Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener E.P. Jayarajan said the case owed its provenance to the findings of a judicial commission instituted by the then United Democratic Front (UDF) to probe the solar scam.
The CBI’s supposed pronouncement dovetailed with Congress’s narrative that Chandy was the victim of a cruel, slanderous, and hurtful political witch-hunt initiated by the government.
Cloud of suspicion
The controversial Cabinet decision had come as a political bombshell for the Congress. It put Chandy and a few other Congress leaders under a cloud of suspicion till the CBI absolved them of wrongdoing two years later.
The Congress believed that the CBI’s supposedly damning report on the case’s questionable origins had helped the party break the vice-like grip of political infamy that hobbled the top leadership. The Congress senses that it has sufficient political ammunition to put the CMO and an LDF ally in the dock.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran, MP, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan, Youth Congress State president Shafi Parambil, and K. Muraleedharan, MP, have dared the government to investigate the CBI’s “finding”.
