The Congress will seek a High Court-monitored probe into the recent revelations of Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case, against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and others, former Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala has said.
He told the media here on Monday that the Chief Minister should resign and face an inquiry. The ongoing protests would continue till this demand was met. Though most of what Ms. Suresh said had already been presented before the investigating agencies earlier as well, no proper inquiry was held.
Mr. Chennithala accused the Chief Minister of being a coward, who had made the lives of the people unbearable by imposing strict security measures wherever he went.
“I am not saying that the Chief Minister should not be given police security. The Chief Minister or Ministers are not deciding how the security steps should be. There is a committee to oversee all that. But right now what is happening is quite unheard of. There is some sort of ban on black dresses,” Mr. Chennithala said. He alleged that the police were asking people to remove black face masks. Black-coloured umbrellas were being told to be abandoned, he said.
Meanwhile, opening a march to the office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Mr. Chennithala accused the BJP and the Union government of pursuing cases against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, MP, while not being serious about the allegations against Mr. Vijayan. The Central agencies were not holding any inquiry into Ms. Suresh’s revelations in the court.
“Why is the ED issuing notices to Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Gandhi and not Mr. Vijayan,” he wondered. The march was to mark the party’s protest against the agency questioning Mr. Gandhi in New Delhi on Monday in the National Herald case. Mr. Chennithala claimed that the ED had found in 2015 that there was no merit in it. The same enforcement directorate had found that the case lacked merit. Holding an inquiry again into the same case was nothing but political blackmailing.
The effort is to silence Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Gandhi, whose were the only credible voices opposing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP, Mr. Chennithala added.
