Kerala opposition intensifies stir against Minister Vijayan says no to resignation

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the second day in succession, the Congress-led opposition in the Kerala Assembly on Friday stood firm in their demand seeking the resignation of State Education Minister V. Sivankutty while Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan firmly ruled out the resignation.

Sivankutty along with another present legislator — K.T. Jaleel, a former Minister, and four other former legislators will have to face trial after the Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the Kerala government's plea to withdraw the cases against the CPI-M leaders for vandalism in the state Assembly in 2015.

While on Thursday the opposition protest began on the floor of the Assembly after Question Hour, on Friday it began as soon as the day's proceedings began.

Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan rose with the demand that Sivankutty has to go and soon Vijayan got up and pointed out that in the first place, it was wrong on the part of the then Congress-led UDF government to have gone forward in a police case against an incident which took place in the floor of the Assembly.

"This case should have been taken forward by the then Speaker, but it was not done. Just because a Minister has been asked to face trial, I fail to understand why the Opposition is demanding the resignation. Under no circumstances will Sivankutty resign," said a peeved Vijayan very firmly.

With this, the slogan shouting from the opposition benches increased and after several minutes of this, the entire opposition boycotted the proceedings of the House. Later speaking to the media in the media room of the Assembly, Satheesan said Vijayan has got his facts wrong as he on Thursday said in no other state Assembly has such a thing happened.

"In our own Assembly an incident occurred in 1970 and so did in the Punjab Assembly when an issue that occurred inside the House was settled by the court. Moreover, Vijayan says that there is no reason for a Minister, who has been asked to face trial, should quit. If that be the case none should forget that leaders like K. Karunakaran, R. Balakrishna Pillai, N. Sreenivasan, K.M. Mani, T.U. Kuruvilla, K.P. Viswanathan and K.K. Ramachandran have all quit as Ministers just because they figured in an FIR or there was a remark in the court," said Satheesan. (IANS)

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