THE  heinous manner in which the UDF government in Kerala sought to crush the protest of  the LDF against  K M Mani  who faces bribery charges in connection with the bar license row,  led to a series of unruly scenes  in the  assembly.  This, in turn, culminated in the undemocratic and arbitrary suspension of five LDF MLAs by the speaker, blatantly siding with the ruling front.

HIGH HANDEDNESS

OF THE UDF GOVT

The second week of assembly session was marked by the high handedness of the UDF government in protecting the tainted finance minister and the partisan attitude of the newly elected speaker. The LDF protest was unprecedented as it had repeatedly warned the UDF government that it would never allow its finance minister, the prime accused in a bribery case to table the budget. The charge is that he had accepted bribe worth two crores from the office bearers of the organisation of bar attached hotels on the assurance that he would play a pivotal role in the ministry to lift the ban on bars. Bars were closed down for a brief span following a tiff between the chief minister and the KPCC president. When the minister failed to act on the promised lines, the bar hotel owners chose to expose the deal that was arrived at, between the minister and the organisation. They released the CDs containing excerpts of what transpired between the concerned parties.  The contents of the CDs were robust proofs for the involvement of the higher ups including the minister. What followed was a plethora of evidences and a series of confirmations of the allegations. When more people came out in the public with fresh evidences, the finance minister was pushed to the wall. Though four other ministers of Oommen Chandy’s cabinet also figured in the list of the accused, it was proved beyond doubt that the fountain head of the deal was the finance minister.

In the wake of the agitation surging ahead across the state, the chief minister had no option but to order a quick verification of the deal by the vigilance department. The fact that the vigilance team could not get the finance minister absolved, despite the pressure mounted both politically and administratively by the government, it is clear that there was a prima facie case, in which not only the minister, but his son too is involved. Mani figures in the FIR and the vigilance has registered a case against him. Propriety demands that he should step down.

It was against this backdrop that the LDF insisted that the tainted finance minister should not present the budget in the assembly as it would do away with the dignity, decorum and decency of the house. In the meantime, more and more allegations which are substantive in nature came up in quick succession to prove that Mani used to selectively leak out the budget contents to interested parties and amass money from them during the pre-budget days in yester years too. It is to be noted that Mani was about to present his 13th budget on the 13th day of this month. What was evident was that Mani has been using the budget as an apparatus to shower undue favours on the vested interests around him in exchange of money. On the one hand, budget presented by him proved to be detrimental to the interests of the state and on the other, it heavily looted the dispossessed and nursed the microscopic rich among which were his kith and kin.

Though the LDF repeatedly urged the UDF government that it should entrust the duty of presenting budget with somebody else other than Mani, those saner voices fell on deaf ears as the UDF itself had stooped to be a dispensation of those who are bent upon looting the exchequer in every respect. It goes without saying that the chief minister himself is facing trial in many scams and arrayed as accused in many cases. May be because of this, the CM too was adamant that Mani himself should present the budget. Had Mani been divested of the task, what followed in the assembly would not have happened and the proceedings would have moved smoothly. What triggered off the opposition’ wrath was the defiant stand taken by the chief minister.

VIRTUAL

SIEGE

As the opposition was convinced that the presentation of the budget by the tainted minister would immensely harm the high esteem the assembly enjoys, it decided to prevent him from reading out the budget. On March 12th itself, the opposition members stayed back in the assembly. Following this, the UDF MLAs also stayed back. While this was going on inside the assembly, people started marching towards the assembly in large numbers. There was a virtual siege outside. The chief minister and the finance minister were put up inside the assembly complex in the night of 12th to circumvent the striking people’s representatives. Yet, both the CM and the FM could not make it to the assembly hall on the budget day through the main gate meant for them.  Mani could not occupy his chair in the treasury benches. The speaker too could not make it to his seat. The speaker could not bring the house to order through his customary announcement. He did not call upon Mani to present the budget. In short, no procedure for the starting of the session was resorted too. Yet Mani occupying the chair of somebody else started reading out something. The whole show was over in six minutes. Thus, the presentation of the budget was a farce or something which has not happened at all. While this was on, the opposition members raised slogans against the anti-democratic way in which the budget was sought to be presented. A fleet of watch and ward staff were deployed by the speaker to quell the democratic protests. Many ruling front MLAs chose to assault LDF members and even women MLAs were not spared. At certain points, their attack against women amounted to misdemeanor. Literally the LDF members were brutally attacked. Many of the women members were smashed to the floor, sarees of some of them were torn apart. In short, it was an onslaught against the dignity of womanhood.

The highly partisan attitude of the speaker who assumed office the previous day was quite evident all through. The speaker who referred the cases against the LDF members to the police, chose to ignore the complaints forwarded by women members.  Some of them were related to the high offence of attempt to molest. His arbitrariness was evident when he suspended five LDF members and allowed the UDF members who flouted the rules and assaulted the members of the opposition, go scot-free. His unilateral announcement that the budget has been passed by the house also betrays his position and unbecoming of a person who holds the post of speaker. However, the LDF can proudly say that they have valiantly fought in defense of democracy which was crushed by the authoritarian contempt of the Congress and its allies.