The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) will make a political bid to move a motion of no-confidence against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government when the Assembly convenes for a day on July 27 to pass the Finance Bill.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said here on Friday that V.D. Satheeshan, Congress MLA, has given notice to the Secretary of the Kerala Legislature to seek the leave of the House to table the motion. He said gold smugglers, corrupt bureaucrats, anti-national elements, black-listed global consultancies, and shady big data analytics firms had a free run of the Chief Minister’s Office. The National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) probe into the smuggling of gold via the diplomatic channel of the UAE consulate appeared to edge closer to higher-ups in the government, he said.
Notice against Speaker
He said Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan had ‘lowered the esteem’ of the House by ‘incautiously’ attending a function sponsored by Swapna Suresh, the second accused in the case. The UDF had given the notice to allow a resolution seeking his removal from the chair. Minister for Higher Education K.T. Jaleel had ‘accepted gifts’ from the UAE consulate without the approval of the Union government. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who held the IT portfolio, had no choice but to oust his Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar to save his skin. The grave national security implications of the gold smuggling case and Mr. Sivasankar’s ‘close association’ with the accused had become problematic for Mr. Vijayan.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) had frowned upon the Chief Minister’s attempts to shield Mr. Sivasankar, he said adding the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leadership did not possess the will to rein in Mr. Vijayan, he said.
CBI probe sought
The Chief Minister, he said, had tried to hide his embarrassment by using a ‘sham governmental inquiry as a fig leaf’ to suspend Mr. Sivasankar. The Opposition would settle for nothing less than a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the back-door appointments and corruption in the IT Department under the watch of Mr. Sivasankar.