Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 24 (IANS): The Kerala Assembly on Thursday witnessed angry exchanges between the treasury and the opposition benches after Speaker M.B.Rajesh denied permission to the Congress-led Opposition to discuss the infamous gold smuggling case.
Since the issue has been raised in the past and it's sub-judice, permission cannot be granted, the Speaker said.
At this, the angry opposition members rushed into the well raising slogans.
The Speaker then requested them to return to their seats and allowed opposition leader Satheesan to speak.
"Speaker Sir, you are trying to set a new precedence by not giving permission to even present the leave for an adjournment motion to discuss the issue. In the past, when your party was in the opposition, cases like bar scam, solar scam were raised numerous times on the floor," he said.
"We all know that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan does not want the issue to be discussed as he knows what his role is. Today it's fear that rules Vijayan and hence he does not want this case to be raised," said Satheesan and announced that the opposition is boycotting the day's session.
Then, the entire opposition squatted in the foyer of the house raising slogans against Vijayan.
Later, Satheesan told media that the entire gold smuggling case was swept under the carpet last year ahead of the Assembly polls due to a secret pact between the CPI(M) and the BJP leadership.
"Two important audio tapes surfaced in 2020 in which prime accused Swapna Suresh, who was in judicial custody, could be heard saying that she was being pressured to speak against Vijayan. But early this month she herself said that the audio tapes was stage managed and that she was asked to do it," said Satheesan.
"She spoke the truth after M. Sivasankar, the former principal secretary of Vijayan, wrote a book, which she refuted. Why was senior IPS official Jacob Thomas suspended by Vijayan for writing a book without permission, while Sivasankar was not even questioned when he did the same? Vijayan is presently caught in a fear trap and does not want to speak," added Satheesan.
Accusing Vijayan of double standards, the Congress leader said that the former had handed over the Solar scam case which has no merit to be investigated by the CBI.
"But in the gold smuggling case he is afraid that the truth will be exposed. Very soon, more details on how Vijayan's office stage managed things will surface. He will have to break his silence soon, said Satheesan.