The ministry of Forests seems to be jinxed with K B Ganesh Kumar becoming the fifth Minister from the state to make an unceremonious exit before the end of their tenures. With Ganesh tendering his resignation on Monday, he joined the bandwagon of Forest Ministers - K P Viswanathan, Neelalohitadasan Nadar, M P Veerendrakumar and K Sudhakaran - who had an early exit before completion of their tenures. Though the political observers have their own take on each of these resignations, the whisper campaign doing the rounds in the Department is that ill omen has taken one more toll. The political observers also find it to be a ‘curious situation’ that most of the Forest Ministers have resigned before their terms were over. Political observer and former MP Sebastian Paul said while some of the Forest Ministers had resigned owing to issues related to forest, others had an exit owing to party in-fight and moral issues. ‘’This is altogether a curious situation,’’ he said. Political analyst Jayasankar said that it was a common factor that most of the important departments such as the Forest and Excise were ruled by people having vested interests. ‘’We have seen that most of the Forest Ministers have not completed their tenure. Though some Ministers had resigned because of issues not related to their department, it can be seen that there was a big mafia behind all the resignations,’’ he said.
Ganesh Kumar handed over his resignation to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy late on Monday night in the wake of his wife raising allegations of domestic violence against him. ‘’Though Ganesh had to resign because of domestic violence allegation, everyone knows that it started with the Nelliampathy issue in which he had locked horns with Government Chief Whip P C George. He said that though personal reasons are stated to have led to his resignation, his exit is related to forest issue,’’ he said.
In the episode of resignations, A Neelalohithadasan Nadar resigned in 2000 from the E K Nayanar ministry after being accused of making sexual overtures towards former Transport Secretary Nalini Netto.
Forest Minister K P Viswanathan resigned from the Oommen Chandy Cabinet in 2005 following the High Court observation suggesting that he had links with sandalwood mafia. Another Forest Minister who had resigned was M P Veerendrakumar of the Janata Party. He resigned as Minister in 1987 within 48 hours of swearing in owing to problems within his party. And yet another Forest Minister who did not complete his term was K Sudhakaran, who had to quit when all the ministers were asked to resign after A K Antony quit as Chief Minister and Oommen Chandy took over in 2004.