THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after meeting their group leader and former chief minister Oommen Chandy, the top honchos of the ‘A’ group in Congress have come up against the party-state leadership for its failure to cash in on the new controversy over the Solar Commission. They allege that the party failed to follow up on the allegations raised by CPI veteran C Divakaran against Justice G Sivarajan.
In his autobiography ‘Kanalvazhikaliloode’, former minister C Divakaran mentioned the abrupt end to the Solar scam protest led by the LDF in front of the Secretariat in 2013. A day after releasing the book, Divakaran dropped another bomb when he made a statement indicating that Justice Sivarajan of the Solar Commission had accepted money to prepare a report against the then CM Oommen Chandy.
Following this, prominent ‘A’ group leaders, including K C Joseph and UDF convener M M Hassan, and Congress state president K Sudhakaran came out demanding a probe into the same. On Thursday, Joseph told TNIE that the issue had put a question mark on Chandy’s integrity and commitment. The senior leader felt that the party should have taken up the matter politically, instead of leaders issuing mere statements.
“Divakaran was the then CPI parliamentary party leader. He was very much in the loop about the LDF’s policy decisions. He stated about Sivarajan bringing out a shoddy report after accepting a bribe so that the Oommen Chandy government does not return to power. Now, former DGP A Hemachandran’s book also has remarks against the Sivarajan Commission. The Congress leadership should have taken it up politically and put the LDF government under pressure,” said Joseph.
However, Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan did not take up Divakaran’s claim seriously as the latter kept on changing his stand.
If initially, Divakaran had claimed that the Solar Inquiry Commission had accepted bribes, he later alleged that the state government spent Rs 5 crore towards the expenses of the commission. “Divakaran had not stated that the Sivarajan Commission took bribes,” pointed out a source close to Satheesan.