Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday attempted to rope the Prime Minister’s Office into the State government’s politically tempestuous run-in with the Central law enforcement.
Mr. Vijayan revealed that he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inform him of how the Central agencies had sought to target the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala. At a stroke, Mr. Vijayan also appeared to seek to set the stage for a national debate on whether the current disposition at the Centre imperilled federalism. Central agencies had tried to derail the State’s social welfare and development programmes with barely concealed political malice by spreading lies and singling out critical officials for harassment, he added.
“Prime Minister is a constitutional office. He cannot allow Central law enforcement to play partisan politics. He is legally bound to curb Central agencies from overstepping their constitutional bounds,” Mr Vijayan said.
He said the federal law enforcement, on the pretext of investigating the UAE consulate-linked gold smuggling case, had attempted to cast the State government under a dark cloud of suspicion in a brazen bid to stack the decks in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress, the ideological echo chamber of the BJP in Kerala, was a fringe beneficiary of the misinformation campaign by the Central agencies.
He said impartiality and discretion were the hallmarks of an ethical investigation. However, the Central agencies seemed to lack both. Instead, they have repeatedly leaked cherry-picked confidential information to BJP leaders and the corporate media in an attempt to hurt the government in an election year. The pattern was discernible across India.
He strived to find common cause with other opposition ruled States, parties and political leaders who had found themselves at the receiving end of the federal law enforcement.
He listed the names of prominent Congress and other Opposition leaders singled out for raids and cases by the Central agencies. Mr. Vijayan also named several Opposition leaders who escaped investigation by defecting to the BJP. The Central agencies appeared to have taken a page out of the playbook of their colonial predecessors. The British used the power of the State to jail freedom fighters.