Thiruvananthapuram: Around the world, clean energy offered by solar power is the toast of environmental activists and conservationists.
Ironically, the word ‘solar’ in Kerala currently invokes everything that is dubious.
In the southern Indian state, ‘solar’ now stands for sleaze, bribes, blackmail and political subterfuge.
The solar scandal is threatening to bring down the Congress-led government of Oommen Chandy in disgrace, even as it is in its last few months.
Now known as the ‘solar scam’, the swift-moving tale of allegations and counter-allegations have already led to the suspension of some staff of the chief minister’s office and revealed the intense political rivalry between the ‘A’ and ‘I’ factions in the Congress.
And, the latest revelations put the chief minister himself is in the line of fire.
It all began in 2013, when Biju Radhakrishnan and Saritha S. Nair managed to get dozens of people to invest millions of rupees in solar and wind power projects through their company Team Solar, promising them fabulous returns on investments.
As investors increased and the company’s cash pile grew, so did the influence of Radhakrishnan and Nair.
Team Solar’s influence developed to a point that the promoters had close contacts with key people in the chief minister’s office, and with Chandy himself.
The eclipse for Team Solar and the political outage for the chief minister were triggered when some investors decided to file a case of cheating against the promoters.
In the early days of the probe, Chandy had to suspend three of his staff members, Tenny Joppen, Jikkumon Jacob and a security officer, Salim Raj.
Radhakrishnan and Nair went to jail over the issue. Nair was released after nine months, but Radhakrishnan remains in prison over another case, in which he is alleged to have murdered his wife.
The solar case ballooned as the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) badgered the government in the state assembly, and held a secretariat siege, demanding Chandy’s resignation.
The chief minister bought peace with the opposition briefly by setting up a Solar Commission, a judicial panel to inquire into the solar scam.
However, the solar commission sittings backfired on the chief minister as those who deposed gave evidence against him.
Questioned
Chandy himself had to suffer the ignominy of being questioned for 14 hours by the Justice G. Sivarajan commission that is probing the solar scam.
The chief minister has constantly stuck to a stand that there was no loss to the state exchequer, and that there was no proof that he stood to gain any personal benefit from associating with the Team Solar promoters.
However, his position weakened when he had to admit that some of the dates that he had provided earlier about his meetings in Delhi were wrong.
The ground slipped further from under Chandy’s feet as Nair deposed again this week before the commission and provided three compact discs, containing alleged conversations of political leaders close to Chandy.
Two of them, Thampanoor Ravi and Benny Behanan are heard on the tapes to be tutoring her what to say to the judicial commission and even assuring her that all will be well.
What rankles most for the chief minister is Nair’s deposition to the commission that she had paid Rs19 million (Dh1 million) to one Thomas Kuruvilla, as directed by the chief minister.
Also in the firing line is power minister Aryadan Mohammed, who is accused of being bribed Rs4 million by Nair.
Congress leaders have had little time in the past few weeks for anything else but denying a wave of allegations against them.
Unfortunately for them, the build-up in the solar scam is happening with barely three months for the assembly election. Chandy’s detractors in the Congress are even hinting that he should not be allowed to lead the party’s campaign in the coming election.
The Opposition Left Democratic Front has its own troubles, but the Congress seems to be doing everything to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, with the torrents of allegations against it.
From ably leading a coalition government with only 72 seats in the 140-member state assembly, Chandy is now facing the worst times of his nearly half-century of political life.
Back in 2011, few would have visualised that a single woman with ambitions of promoting a solar power company would demolish the image that Kerala’s arguably shrewdest politician had built up over half a century.
