How ‘beauties’ have wrecked havoc with Kerala govts

Thiruvananthapuram, July 9 (IANS) Over the years if one looks back, the role of ‘beauties’ wrecking Kerala governments has happened a number of times and the latest gold smuggling case is another example where the primary accused Swapna Suresh is on the run.

Way back in the mid nineties, the first to fall was none other than Congress veteran K. Karunakaran, who had to bite the dust following the ISRO spy case, which involved two Maldivian women.

Following a huge encore, Karunakaran had to bow out and in came A.K. Antony in 1995.

Following his resignation, Karunakaran and his family continued to be haunted, but it took more than two decades for the apex court to give a clean chit to the ISRO scientist – Nambi Narayanan, who was the most vilified, then.

After that incident, it was during the tenure of Oommen Chandy in his second term as Chief Minister, (2011-16) a con woman Saritha Nair wrecked havoc after links of her closeness with three staff members in Chandy’s office, came out.

Saritha along with her partner was found to have cheated numerous people after collecting money and failed to give them solar panels.

Chandy and his family came under heavy duress and he faced one of the biggest protests that any Chief Minister had to face and on one occasion, the protests turned so violent, when a stone that was hurled at him when he went to inaugurate a function in Kannur, injured his forehead and his chest in 2013.

And at one of his routine weekly cabinet press briefing, Chandy unbuttoned his shirt to showed his wound in the chest.

Leading the protests then was none other than present Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and eventually when it became the biggest election campaign issue for the Left, Chandy, who was expecting to enter record books by becoming the first incumbent Chief Minister to get a successive term, lost badly and Vijayan took over.

And today the heat is on Vijayan after the Customs intercepted a baggage addressed to the local UAE Consulate and found that it contained gold.

The key person who is presently on the run is Swapna Suresh who happens to be close to the ruling Left Democratic Front government in the state and despite dubious qualifications, she was holding a high paying job and was very close to senior IAS official M. Sivasankar, secretary to Vijayan, also the state IT secretary.

As a quick damage control exercise, Vijayan showed the exit door to Sivasankar and removed him from both the posts, but the Congress and the BJP have intensified their protests and have asked Vijayan to quit and face the probe.

Since the latest issue surfaced, the social media is having a free for all and by now numerous trolls have come out which involve Saritha and Swapna.

Also out in the public domain is a speech that Vijayan made against Chandy, when the solar scam protest was at its peak and referred to the links that Saritha and Chandy and his office had.

But the soft spoken and a man with no airs, Chandy wrote in his Facebook soon after the gold smuggling case surfaced, that when he saw this news, recalled the time of the Solar scam, when he was at the receiving end.

“The solar scam was the one where not a single rupee of the state government was involved nor did the fraudulent firm of hers (Saritha) got any government assistance or help. When reports surfaced that three members of my staff were involved, they were dismissed. The Left opposition demanded a judicial probe and that was also done and in that case, the Vijayan government which has now completed more than four years in office has not been able to do anything more than what we did then”.

“I do not feel happy at the news of the present allegations involving the CM’s office now, but the response which I took and the government did against the allegations, when compared to the present intolerance shown by Vijayan will be understood by the people. A CBI probe has to be announced. I am a strong believer in God. I have nothing against anyone and numerous people pray for me. The truth will always triumph,” said Chandy.

But Vijayan trying to put up a brave face has said the position that they took in the gold smuggling case after the links of Sivasankar with Swapna surfaced, the Congress can never ever imagine.

“We (Left) are a totally different breed and deal things differently,” said Vijayan.

State BJP president K. Surendran has gone a step further and said that the probe should go into the various foreign trips undertaken by Vijayan.

“Only the Chief Minister gets the facility of walking through the green channel at the airports, but a probe should be done to find out if around nine people accompanying Vijayan also were cleared through the green channel. Sivasankar has been a regular person accompanying Vijayan and hence with the present gold smuggling case surfacing, a detailed probe has to be done,” said Surendran.

With the Centre also looking into this case seriously, the coming days will reveal, if Vijayan, will end up the way Karunakaran and Chandy did.

–IANS

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