THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:The Opposition played its game for the day in the Assembly by remaining committed to its strategy of opposing anything and everything related to the budget presented by Finance Minister K M Mani, while the ghost of Solar and Bar scams were on the prowl outside the House to give added strength.
A notice issued to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for appearing before the solar scam probe commission and BJP deciding to raise the issue in Parliament to browbeat the Congress charges against the Narendra Modi Government came in handy for the Opposition.
Devising a strategy to choke the government, Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan led the onslaught and dug out the immediate past of the ruling front with Solar and Bar scams, while Finance Minister K M Mani was trying to present the Finance Bill, 2015. He said the government has no moral right to present the Bill and all knows well that how the Bar scam probe against Mani and Excise Minister K Babu were torpedoed by caging the Vigilance Department.Achuthanandan said the BJP has even made out a case from the Solar scam against Oommen Chandy by raising it in Parliament now. A determined Opposition moved to the well of the House and held a sit-in, forcing Speaker N Sakthan to guillotine the proceedings in the schedule listed for the day and adjourn the Assembly.
Permission was denied earlier for taking up a notice for an adjournment motion by the Opposition on the rising incidents of poaching in the state’s forests, thereby outwitting scope for an Opposition walkout. Presenting it as a submission, V S Sunilkumar (CPI) came down heavily on the Forest Department honchos and alleged that the elephant and other animal population in the state is dwindling with rampant poaching.Asserting a wide connect for it with international ivory trade and the role of big shots, including those in the forest department, he also found that something is rotten over the recent death of a sharp shooter specialised in killing tuskers and key accused in the just detected poaching cases in Vazhachal-Athirapally forests, in a farm house at far away Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, under suspicious circumstances.