Kerala - Kannur   

Pinarayi misleading the public, says Chennithala

Staff Reporter

PCC chief begins his Chaitanya Yatra on August 5

KANNUR: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala has alleged that Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan is misleading the public on the SNC Lavalin issue.

Addressing a meet-the-press programme here on Thursday, Mr. Chennithala demanded that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy constitute a special team to probe the multi-crore deal between the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and the Canadian company. Terming the deal the biggest ever corruption scandal in the State, he said Mr. Vijayan was running away from the real issue of the Rs.374-crore loss incurred by the State and of the Rs.110 crores gained by SNC Lavalin from the deal.

``The cancer hospital (Malabar Cancer Centre at Thalassery) is a secondary issue, the real issue is the loss of a huge amount for a deal that has not led to generation of a single unit of additional electricity.'' Mr. Vijayan is keeping a studied silence about the loss suffered by the State and the gain made by the Canadian company, he added.

An agreement made for consultancy when G. Karthikeyan was Electricity Minister had been turned into a supply contract by Mr. Vijayan when he succeeded the former. Canadian aid for the MCC had not come up in the first agreement signed by Mr. Vijayan in Canada, he said adding that it was included only in the second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by him in Canada. If the assurance of the aid had been included in the first agreement, the Canadian company would have been liable to arrange it. Mr. Chennithala recalled that the draft of the agreement for the second MoU had been rejected by S. Sarma who succeeded Mr. Vijayan as Electricity Minister. The whole deal made during the previous LDF Government raised suspicion about the involvement of `kickbacks,' he said.

The KPCC chief said that his Chaitanya Yatra would start from Hossankadi in Kasaragod at 9 a.m. on August 5. The yatra will pass through 280 centres before it concludes in Thiruvananthapuram on August 27. Congress president Sonia Gandhi will attend the function and she will open the new KPCC building here on the occasion.

Before the yatra, the KPCC will organise a three-day State camp in Kochi from July 22. Congress Ministers, KPCC members and MLAs will attend the camp. Two zonal camps will be conducted at Adoor and Kozhikode on July 29, 30 and 31.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Pinarayi misleading the public, says Chennithala
Kannur University plea for land

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu