With the Assembly election campaign rapidly heading to a close, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government on Friday upped the ante in the political stand-off with the BJP-led Central administration.
It ordered a sweeping judicial inquiry into the alleged jurisdictional overreach and the pronounced “political bias” of the Central agencies probing the UAE gold smuggling case.
The government required the Election Commission of India’s permission to set the judicial probe in motion. The Commission’s terms of reference and the agencies that would come under the ambit of its investigation were not immediately known.
Nevertheless, the decision has arguably accorded the LDF a believable political prod to push the Centre’s alleged trespasses against the State’s rights to the forefront of the electoral debate.
Last straw
The Income Tax inspection of the KIIFB on Thursday seemed to be the last straw. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan portrayed the “unwarranted examination” as an attack on federalism and an invasion of the State’s right to raise money for infrastructure development. The LDF hoped the voters would find the line of argument persuasive.
The order on judicial inquiry comes barely two weeks after the State Police Crime Branch booked unnamed Enforcement Directorate officials on the charge of conspiring to implicate Mr. Vijayan in the smuggling case dishonestly.
The Custom’s “revelation” in court that gold smuggling suspect Swapna Suresh had “stated with clarity about the smuggling of foreign currency at the instance of Chief Minister (Pinarayi Vijayan) and the Speaker (P. Sreeramakrishnan)” had caused an all-time low in Centre-State relations in early March. LDF activists had laid siege to customs offices in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode in protest.
Pre-poll showdown
A pre-poll showdown with the Central agencies had been in the making since the CBI booked LIFE Mission officials on the charge of violating the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act last year.
The CBI case had its provenance in the Customs probe into the gold smuggling case. Soon, Mr. Vijayan withdrew the general consent accorded to the CBI to operate in Kerala voluntarily.
At a stroke, the LDF also found common political cause with other non-BJP ruled States that had banned the CBI. The BJP said the bogey of the judicial probe and Crime Branch investigation would not deter the Centre from pursuing the truth.
