Assembly session to resume on Monday

Thiruvananthapuram: The Assembly resumes its second session on Monday.

The UDF will be demanding that the enquiry into allegations of nepotism in appointments to public sector units should cover the Chief Minister’s Office too. Appointments to key posts would not have taken place without the knowledge of the Chief Minister, it says.

The UDF is demanding enquiry into role of Chief Minister’s office to strike parallel with the Opposition demand during the UDF role for probe into the role of Chief Minister’s office in solar scam.

However, the real debate will be over who upheld accountability. While Industries Minister E. P. Jayarajan had resigned admitting his mistake, the UDF Ministers had not resigned when faced with allegations of corruption. In fact, then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had not accepted the resignation of Excise Minister K. Babu over bar-bribery case.

The UDF strategy for sitting on Monday would be decided at the meeting of the Parliamentary party on Monday morning. As it stands, the UDF may not resume its hunger strike before the Assembly over fee hike in self-financing medical colleges.

On the other hand, the UDF will be highlighting the continuing political murders in Kannur district during the session. It would be an opportunity for it to put both the CPI (M) and the BJP on the defensive.

As the House has already passed most of the demands for grants in current year’s Budget (without much discussion), the rest of the session will be mostly devoted legislation.  The session is to end on November 10.