SOLAR SCAM: CONGRESS LEAVES DECISION TO HIGH COMMAND

SOLAR SCAM: CONGRESS LEAVES DECISION TO HIGH COMMAND

As the UDF Government in Kerala continued to sizzle under the political heat generated by the solar panel scam, the state unit of Congress on Wednesday decided to leave it to the party High Command the final decision to defuse the crisis."All issues will be settled after our meeting with the High Command on July 28 and 29," Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, whose resignation is being demanded by the LDF over the scam, and KPCC President Ramesh Chennithala said.

They were addressing a joint press meet after bilateral discussions with leaders of UDF key allies Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Kerala Congress-M. The leaders, however, declined to make any direct reply when asked whether a leadership change was on the cards. Chandy merely said, "All matters will be settled."When reporters persisted with their query on leadership change, Chennithala said the Chief Minister had made it clear it was up to the High Command to take a decision on all issues. Chandy and Chennithala also said the High Command would be interacting with the leaders of the UDF coalition to discuss the Kerala situation.

Significantly, the decision to leave matters to the High Command came hours after the Chief Minister categorically ruled out his resignation in the wake of yesterday's critical observations by the high court about the progress of probe into the solar scam, which has brought his office under cloud. Chandy had on July 14 met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to explain the political situation and later said the issue of leadership change and cabinet reshuffle was not discussed at the meeting.

Seizing on the high court observations, the LDF stepped up its campaign by staging an indefinite "day-and-night" dharna in front of the government secretariat here as well as in all district headquarters demanding Chandy's resignation and a judicial probe into the scam. On the court front, the case diary and a confidential report regarding the progress of investigation into the scam were handed over to high court by the Director General of Prosecution.

Earlier, ADGP A Hemachandran, heading the SIT, handed over the progress report of the case to the DG Prosecution. The high court also reserved orders on the bail petition of television actress Shalu Menon, arrested in a related case.The solar scam pertains to financial cheating of large number of people by scam accused Saritha Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan. The scam took a serious political turn after the arrest of a close personal aide of Chandy for his alleged links with the fraudsters. Two other personal staff members of Chandy were removed and state public relations director A Firoz was arrested in a related case.

Prof. John Kurakar