THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala's new Industry Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty feels that the ousted Left Front government's efforts to malign his image in the Ice Cream Parlour sex scandal helped his party come back to power.
Kunhalikutty, a powerful leader of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), had run into a lean patch in 2005 when he had to quit as a minister following allegations of his involvement in the infamous Kozhikode ice cream parlour sex case, which eventually led to his defeat in the 2006 assembly polls.
"I was haunted, especially in the last one year of the previous Left government, by (then chief minister V.S.) Achuthanandan whose only aim was to trap me as an accused in that case and despite his best efforts which continued even after the last assembly polls, he failed to do so. And it was this clandestine operation which led to some sort of a huge sympathy wave in favour of us and we came out hugely successful," said Kunhalikutty at his first press conference here after becoming minister.
The infamous sex case in the early 1990s involved an ice cream parlour in Kozhikode as its base, giving the scandal its name. A minor girl alleged that she was molested by the IUML leader. The case was shut in 2006 but it was reopened after Kunhalikutty's brother-in-law K.A. Rauf sought to spill the beans with a series of press conferences during the last week of January this year.
Former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan ordered a re-investigation in the case before the April 13 assembly polls this year.