The CPI(M) State secretariat on Friday said the Central Bureau of Investigation’s decision to investigate the LIFE Mission-UAE Red crescent agreement to provide free housing for 140 needy families in Thrissur was politically motivated.
The development had occurred immediately after Bharatiya Janata Party State president K. Surendran demanded a probe into the agreement. The CBI had acted on his cue. The CBI had used a complaint by a Congress legislator as a fig leaf of an excuse to initiate an inquiry on its own into the matter.
It had violated convention and acted in a politically partisan manner to cast the government and its programmes under a permanent pall of suspicion. The CBI had opened the probe without the sanction of the State government or a court directive. The move was a challenge to democracy.
The Congress, which opposed the CBI’s politically partisan role in non-BJP ruled States, had no compunction when the BJP used Central agencies to discredit the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala.
The CPI(M) alleged that the Congress had traded of its political ethics for narrow political gains by aligning with the BJP against the LDF. The BJP had reciprocated by reining in the CBI probes into the Titanium corruption and Maradu riots, in which incriminated persons included UDF leaders.