People's Democracy

KERALA NEWLETTER

Complete Hartal Observed on Diesel Price Issue

N S Sajith

ON September 15, the hartal called for by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) hit normal life all over Kerala. This dawn-to-dusk hartal was called to register protest against the recent hike in the diesel price and curtailment of subsidy on LPG cylinders.

The hartal crippled the mobility of people as the public modes of transport kept off the roads while shops and hotels remained closed. There was no disruption of rail traffic. The BJP observed a hartal on the day separately.

The police said no violence was reported from anywhere. Trade unions in transport sector had extended support to the protest. Offices and factories worked with skeleton strength.

VS STOPPED AT KERALA-

TAMILNADU BORDER

On September 18, V S Achuthanandan, leader of the opposition in Kerala assembly, was obstructed by the police from proceeding to Koodamkulam in Tamilnadu. The police stopped him in Kaliyikkavila, a border town at the Kerala-Tamilnadu border. A police team headed by Parvesh Kumar, superintendent of police in Kanyakumari district, said his visit could well spark a law and order issue in Koodamkulam, where the villagers are protesting against the fuel-filling in the atomic reactors.   

Later, addressing to the media, Achuthanandan reacted that he did not intend to create any law and order problem. He added that he was on a visit to Koodumkulam in order to extend solidarity to the people protesting against the atomic reactor. He said there was no question for him to change his stand on this issue.

‘PINARAYI DID NOT GAIN

FROM LAVALIN DEAL’

In the much hyped Lavalin case, which the UDF and the pro-bourgeois media used as an instrument to defame the CPI(M), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the nation’s premier investigating agency, has once again clarified that the CPI(M)’s state secretary and former electricity minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, did not extract any monetary benefit from the deal. It is to be noted that the Lavalin case pertained to maintenance of four hydroelectric projects.

While hearing the appeals demanding a re-probe, in the CBI special court, the prosecutor of the investigating agency said that G Karthikeyan, another former electricity minister, too did not get any financial benefit. Earlier, on December 19, 2011, the CBI had made the same point in its report on re-probe. The CBI court had directed a re-probe on the basis of an appeal file by Nandakumar, editor of a notorious yellow magazine called Crime.

The CBI also maintained that the statements of the witness Dipak Kumar, who claimed that he had seen Pinarayi receiving bribe of two crore rupees, was baseless. This witness, a Keralite residing in Chennai, had been brought into the case by Nandakumar. The CBI recorded the statement of Dipak Kumar on four occasions, these statements appeared mutually contradictory. He changed his statement every time. Nor was there any evidence of withdrawal of money from the bank he had referred to.

Interestingly, the complainant has been dragging new witnesses into the case whenever he found that the investigation and interim judgements did not favour his interests. The witnesses, who are nowhere connected with this case, were brought in order to delay the proceedings, CBI prosecutor Anilkumar said.

The complainant also brought a bogus witness to overcome the position of Pinarayi Vijayan’s advocate who argued that there no point in including Pinrayi in the case. Nandakumar also filed a bogus complaint that Pinarayi has made huge assets and that he has a business firm in Singapore. These allegations were proved baseless by various central agencies.