Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan needn’t respond to all charges: AK Balan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM central committee member A K Balan on Friday said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan need not respond to all allegations appearing in the media.
He was referring to the CM's silence on allegations about the installation of artificial intelligence-based road surveillance cameras in the state.
"Now the criticism is that the CM is not responding. If the CM responds, the same people would question the propriety of the CM expressing his views on the issue while a vigilance inquiry is on. It would be dubbed as an intervention by the CM," he said.
Industries minister P Rajeeve dismissed the allegations as baseless and said the government had not spent any money on the project so far.
CPM leaders justify chief minister's silence
Even as the opposition challenged chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to respond to the allegations in connection with the AI camera controversy, the CPM leadership justified his silence by dismissing the allegations as baseless and blamed the media for blowing the issue out of proportion.
CPM central committee member A K Balan was the first to blast the opposition and media. He said there was no need for the CM to respond to all the allegations that pop up in the media. "Now, the criticism is that the CM is not responding. If the CM responds, the same people would question the propriety of the CM expressing his views on the issue while a vigilance inquiry is on. It would be dubbed as the intervention by the CM and the very sanctity of the probe would be thus questioned," Balan said. Similarly, if the CM keeps mum, it would be interpreted that he was not responding because he has something to hide, he said.
"Anyway, new people and companies are brought in every day to make new allegations. Let things settle down. If the chief minister has to respond to all these allegations at once, the office of the CM would need to set up a special mechanism for the same," Balan said, adding that nobody was able to prove any of the allegations raised against the chief minister or his family members.
One should understand that the hullabaloo is over a project to which administrative sanction was given in 2020. When a complaint was received, the CM passed the same to the vigilance for inquiry, on the same day. "It's wrong on the part of the CM to make a comment on an issue under the investigation of the vigilance department, under him," he said, adding that if the CM maintained silence, it means that he was not ready to respond to each and every allegation.
Later, industries minister P Rajeeve sought to dismiss the allegations in connection with the Safe Kerala project as baseless. He said the government has not spent any money on the project so far and the allegations raised by the media and the opposition were flimsy. "The allegations don't carry the weight that warrant the CM to respond to it. There is no proof for any of the allegations. Some claims have no connection with the issue at all," he said.