Kerala opposition steps up demand for minister’s resignation

By IANS

Thiruvananthapuram : Kerala’s Congress-led opposition Thursday stepped up its demand for the resignation of Public Works Minister T.U. Kuruvilla after a Kuwait-based businessman originally from Kerala accused him of cheating in a land deal.


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G. Karthikeyan, deputy leader of the Congress in the assembly, asked Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan to dismiss Kuruvilla from the cabinet.

“There is no point in asking the minister to resign because he has already said that he won’t do so after these allegations surfaced. So Achuthanandan, who time and again has been speaking of a ‘land mafia’ operating in the state, should dismiss Kuruvilla,” Karthikeyan told reporters here.

Businessman K.G. Abraham has this week accused Kuruvilla of cheating him in a deal to transfer a plot of land in Munnar that is in the name of the minister’s three children.

Indian Union Muslim League general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty, former industries minister in the previous Oommen Chandy cabinet who had to step down in 2004 after a woman accused him of sexual exploitation, demanded that Achuthanandan should ask Kuruvilla to go.

Kuruvilla, a first-time legislator from Kothamangalam constituency in Ernakulam district, belongs to the Kerala Congress (Joseph) party.

His party chief and former minister P.J. Joseph told reporters in Idukki that no decision had been taken so far as the issue was being studied.

Trouble for Kuruvilla started last month when treasury bench legislator P.C. George alleged a fraud in the land deal with the businessman and gave a written complaint to Achuthanandan.

The chief minister asked Idukki district collector Raju Narayana Swamy to probe the matter and the inquiry revealed Wednesday that the deal was a fraudulent one.

Abraham, meanwhile, went public Wednesday saying Kuruvilla and his son-in-law Sudhip John, who was the general manager of Abraham’s business in Kuwait, had struck a deal to sell to him 50 acres of land in the picturesque hill station of Munnar in Idukki district to build a world-class resort.

As part of the deal Abraham had given Rs.67.5 million as advance money.

Abraham said he was given to understand that the minister’s three children owned the land, but later Abraham found out that Kuruvilla’s children was buying land at a low price and selling to him at an inflated price.

Moreover, the land he was to buy was meant only for cardamom cultivation and not for any construction.

Meanwhile, Achuthanandan and Kuruvilla, both currently in Delhi, had a meeting and informed sourced indicated that the public works minister has been asked to resign.

They said the minister was likely to put in his papers Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Kuruvilla said he was not the one to cling on to the post. “I never ever thought of becoming a legislator and I would resign the moment either my party or the chief minister asks me to,” said Kuruvilla, adding that he would attend the cabinet meeting to be held here Friday.

Kuruvilla became a minister almost a year back when party chief Joseph stepped down as minister after he was alleged to have misbehaved with a woman on board a flight from Chennai to Kochi.

Reports indicate that if Kuruvilla steps down the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is unlikely to give a ministerial post to the Kerala Congress (Joseph) party again. Joseph’s party has four legislators.

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