Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala lionised and feted Central law enforcement agencies functioning in Kerala.
At the same time, Congress president Sonia Gandhi portrayed them as political tools of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government.
Mr. Chennithala glorified federal law enforcement as politically non-partisan and objective. In contrast, Ms. Gandhi said they were instruments in the hands of the Centre to unsettle non-BJP ruled States, hound political opponents and discredit Opposition activists in general.
The country’s history was dotted with examples of successive Central governments using federal law enforcement for political purposes. “I am not venturing further into the topic. The government is still of the opinion that the multiple investigations into the gold smuggling case were no the right track,” the Chief Minister said. But, Mr. Chennithala should explain why he extolled the Central agencies functioning in Kerala.
The State had challenged the CBI’s decision to investigate Life Mission officials on the charge of violating Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act because it received a legal opinion that the agency had overstepped its jurisdictional bounds.
The Congress and the BJP had attempted to lay down a smokescreen of lies to eclipse the track record of the LDF government and put it on the defence ahead of the local body polls. They had tried to kick up a stink by spreading conspiracy theories about the government’s link with gold smugglers.
The government had removed the Chief Minister’s former Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar from service immediately after it became known that he had suspicions connection with gold case accused Swapna Suresh.
