Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Thursday continued to remain non-committal on bringing him and his office under the purview of the terms of reference of the judicial probe into the solar scam.
During his regular cabinet briefing he evaded direct answers to the array of questions raised by the mediapersons on the issue.
Asked to give a direct answer whether the Chief Minister and his office would come under the terms of reference, the Chief Minister pointed out that he had already made it clear that whatever demands the Opposition had raised in the Assembly in this regard would be met. In spite of his readiness to accept all demands by the Opposition, the Chief Minister evaded a direct reply.
He said the fraudsters had received no help from him. The government has not suffered any loss in this scam, he said. Referring to the involvement of some of his personal staff members in the scam, he said their role was being probed.
He said that since CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan had called for including the cases registered in 2005 also under the terms of reference, and Government had decided to include the same. But there were only two cases related to the solar scam registered in 2005.
The Chief Minister alleged that the Opposition allegations were politically motivated.
‘Political Motives’
“They have political motives. That’s why they oppose the people’s contact programme. It is against the democratic propriety,’’ the Chief Minister said.
Referring to the Opposition charge that mass contact programme was a gimmick, he asked why had the people’s representatives from the Opposition attended the mass contact programme earlier.