THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the state government and office of the chief minister cannot be blamed for the misconduct of a bureaucrat or his wrongdoings in his personal capacity. Replying to queries of mediapersons after the Covid briefing on Thursday, Pinarayi said there were allegations that the party had appointed Sivasankar as the principal secretary to chief minister. “All these allegations are baseless,” he said. “The state government or the party had no previous connections with Sivasankar,” he said.
Govt has done nothing wrong, says Pinarayi
“When the government came to power, a lot of names were suggested to the office of the CM. Nalini Netto, who was in charge of the home department, was appointed the principal secretary to CM and Sivasankar was the officer on special duty then,” he said.
“Later, when Nalini Netto was promoted as the chief secretary, V S Senthil was appointed the principal secretary to the CM. And later, Sivasankar was appointed the principal secretary to CM following his promotion,” the CM said.
“The personal relations of a civil service officer are not the responsibility of the state government. But when it was found that his relations would affect the state government, he was stripped off all his positions and the state government completely disowned him,” he said.
Pinarayi said the state government and the party leadership have not done anything wrong so far.
“The government is not at all responsible for the personal relations of a bureaucrat and it will not own up legal or moral responsibility in this matter. In fact, it was the state government that took the lead to start a probe by a central agency in the case,” he said.
The CM said the bid to the blame the government for the personal misconduct of a bureaucrat cannot be accepted. The Opposition leader has been raising allegations by ignoring the facts, he added.The CM, meanwhile, did not mention anything with regard to the arrest of Bineesh Kodiyeri.