By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : The Kerala assembly Monday witnessed uproarious scenes when a war of words broke out between Leader of Opposition Oommen Chandy and Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan following which members of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) walked out of the House.
It all started when Congress legislator T.N. Prathapan sought leave for an adjournment motion to discuss the alleged lack of confidence that Achuthanandan has in Transport Minister Jose Thettayil and vice versa — which came out in the open last week during the meeting of the Left Democratic Front (LDF).
“The only instance that this has happened before is in 1967 when E.M.S. Nampoothiripad was the chief minister and he expressed lack of confidence in CPI Minister M.N. Govindan Nair. Soon, that government collapsed,” Prathapan said.
Last week, Achuthanandan had at the LDF meeting reportedly said that he feels that all is not well in the transport department and described the transfers as not being according to the norms. He also said that the department was not working as it was when Mathew T. Thomas was the minister.
The Janata Dal (S) faction of the ruling Left alliance termed Achuthanandan’s remark as “irresponsible”.
Rebutting Prathapan’s statement Monday, Achuthanandan said that the LDF is the guiding spirit behind his government and in that meeting lot of discussions take place.
“What you are doing is taking out parts of what happened and using it politically. I have full confidence in all my cabinet ministers. You raise such baseless things because you know very well that all such things happened when Chandy’s government was here,” said Achuthanandan.
Reacting to the chief minister’s remarks, Chandy said: “You are very capable of saying one thing now and then backing out the next moment. When in opposition, you have made lot of statements against corruption, but it is clear that when you handled the transport department last year, more than 180 postings had taken place in the department.
“All know that the transfers at that time defied logic. Henceforth, please don’t ever speak on tirades against corruption,” Chandy said.
He then led the entire opposition out of the house.
Thettayil is a first time legislator and became minister last August following a split in his party JD (S) which today has two factions. One of the factions is led by M.P. Veerendra Kumar and the other, to which Thettayil belongs, is led by N.M. Joseph.
The undivided JD(S) was part of the LDF for more than a quarter of century, but the CPI-M during the May Lok Sabha elections refused the Kozhikode seat to Kumar.
Following that, Kumar asked his party nominee Thomas to quit the cabinet, which he did. But Thomas refused to join Kumar when he moved over to the Congress-led UDF.