Kerala opposition demands special assembly session to table solar report

Kozhikode (Kerala), Oct 18 (IANS) With Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan rejecting the demand for making public the report of the Justice G. Sivarajan Commission in the solar scam, the Congress-led UDF on Wednesday demanded that a special assembly session be called to table the report.

The demand was made by chairman of the UDF and Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala while talking to the media.

Earlier, the UDF decided to extend complete support to former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who has been arraigned in the scam as prime accused by the CPI-M government as well as other senior Congress leaders, and termed it as political witch hunting.

"Now that the Commission report has been submitted and the state government is going forward by registering cases against very senior leaders of the previous government, and Chandy too has demanded a copy of the report, a daylong special session can be called and the report tabled," said Chennithala.

Chandy wrote to Vijayan and also sought the report through RTI, but both these attempts have turned out to be futile. He has now decided to seek legal recourse to get a copy of the report, in which he has been charged with criminal and even sexual harassment charges.

In the state capital on Wednesday, CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the state government will do the needful on the issue as when the report is out "all these leaders will have to cover their faces out of shame".

Vijayan asked cases to be registered after the probe panel recommended action against the entire solar probe police team, headed by now Director General of police A. Hemachandran.

Hemachandran wrote to Vijayan and other top officials that he takes full responsibility of the probe and hence the other probe officials should be excluded from any action.

The solar scam made headlines over four years ago with the arrest of Saritha Nair and her partner Biju Radhakrishnan, who had allegedly conned businessmen by floating their high-level connections including with Chandy, who was then the Chief Minister.