Kerala’s opposition Congress yesterday asked chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to get down to the serious business of governance instead of beating about the bush.
They say the administration in the state continues to be paralysed with the senior bureaucrats haunted by the anti-corruption police were not cooperating with the government for the past three months.
“People are suffering because of the chief minister’s attempt to bully the officers, and the public distribution (of essential commodities) stopped ever since he assumed office seven months back,” Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said.
“A good administrator would intervene and carry the officers along when there are disputes without taking sides. But here’s is a chief minister who browbeats them to have his way. Does he think they are his party comrades?” he asked.
The Congress leader was responding to the reports that Vijayan scolded chief secretary SM Vijayanand and additional chief secretary Paul Antony wanted to quit after the police booked him for obeying orders of a minister, who had to resign later, to appoint his nephew at the top of a government enterprise.
“Do you think the chief secretary is a schoolkid? Vijayan is destroying the morale of the executive. His problem is his autocratic style of functioning. Nobody can point out his mistakes,” he said.
“There’s no coordination in the government. His allies are disgruntled. Development projects are in limbo.”
“The government could spend only 26.4% of the Plan outlay. It has left with only two months (in this fiscal year) to set things right.”
Kerala was facing a crisis in governance with the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) director Jacob Thomas pitted against the rest of officers, some of them with impeccable personal integrity.
They say he was “manufacturing” corruption cases using a “shadow complainant” against everyone who had pointed out his irregularities in the past.
They include almost every top ranking officer. But the chief minister was sitting on their repeated complaints.
“Now the ruling front is taking to streets with protests (against the federal government and other establishments in the state). I would like to remember them that they were not elected to power to strike work but to govern,” he said.
“Now there’s no ration rice. The government doctors are on strike. Even the cinemas are closed, and the state is going to face the worst drought.”
“But the government which is to solve all these is in a make-believe world, and, worse, they are also on strike.”