‘Wine and women’ set the political agenda for by-poll to Kerala Assembly

A by-election to an Assembly constituency normally doesn’t hit national headlines as it is fought on local issues. But what makes the June 27 by-poll in Aruvikkara Assemby constituency in Kerala curiouser and curiouser is that the election campaign is virtually driven by a bar owner and two women.

The bar owner–Biju Ramesh–is the kingpin behind the bar bribery scam in which two of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s Cabinet colleagues — Finance Minister K M Mani and Excise Minister K Babu–are facing allegations of taking bribes for renewing bar licenses.

The two women in question — Saritha Nair and Shalu Menon — are the central figures in the solar panel scam that at one point of time threatened to rock the Oommen Chandy Government.

The bar bribery issue has snowballed into the biggest political sandal to rock the state in recent times. The allegation raised by whistle-blower Biju Ramesh against Finance and Law Minister KM Mani,leader of the third biggest constituent of the ruling coalition, is that he had demanded Rs 5 crore as bribe and had taken Rs 1 crore of it to help the bar owners get the licences renewed for the 418 bars lying closed since April 1 for lack of required facilities. Though concrete evidence is yet to be produced in this case, the Government had to pay a heavy political price for its acts of omissions and commissions in the case.

In the solar scam, charges were made directly against the Chief Minister, his office, his Ministers and associates. The scam centers round a fraudulent solar energy company, Team Solar, which allegedly used the two women to create political contacts and duped several influential people, including NRIs, by offering to make them business partners, or install solar power units for them, and receiving advance payments for the same. Among those who were arrested in this scandal included one of the personal aides of the Chief Minister. In its verdict in the first of the 33 cases filed against the accused, the Pathanamthitta Magistrate Court sentenced Biju Radhakrishnan and Saritha Nair, the fist and second accused, to six years in prison.

Both the scams have landed the ruling front in a credibility crisis and strengthened the worst fears of the people about the unholy liquor-politics nexus, which is bound to impact the bi-poll in Aruvikkara, necessitated by the death of former Speaker and Congress leader G Karthikeyan.

Wary of possible adverse fallouts of the scams, Congress leadership, instead of going for a political fight by putting a party leader as the candidate, initially decided to cash in on the sympathy factor by fielding Kartikeyan’s wife, M T Sulekha, a former college professor, but she declined.

The leadership then zeroed in on her son, K S Sabarinath, who was ultimately persuaded to enter the electoray fray. He confronts former Assembly Speaker and Minister M Vijayakumar of the Left Democratic Front(LDF) and O Rajagopal, BJP leader and a former Minister of State in the Vajpayee government.

For the Congress-led Government, which is riding on a thin majority in the assembly, the by-election is very critical. In the 140-strong Assembly, the ruling front has a strength of only 73 members after the death of Karthikeyan.

The Government has no major achievements to crow about. Except Kochi Metro, very little is happening on the development front, prices of essential commodities are skyrocketing, while corruption rules the roost in Government offices.

The Opposition too is in disarray with CPM strongman Pinarayi Vijayan relegated to the background and shying away from sharing stage with his bete noire V S Achuthanandan.

Congress wants to win the by-election at any cost as its outcome would be perceived as a referendum on the Oommen Chandy Government and could have a great bearing on the next Assembly election due within an year.

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