Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the central probe agencies on Monday. (File)
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday slammed the central probe agencies as he alleged that the state's development projects were being "derailed" and officials were being "demoralised". The Chief Minister's attack on the probe agencies came on a day when the ruling Left Democratic Front took out booth-level protests across the state against the alleged excess of central probe agencies.
"All investigating agencies are hovering around officials, being summoned repeatedly... All investigating agencies, except one, seem to be in Kerala currently," Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said during a press conference on Monday.
"Investigating agencies are not meant to dance to the tunes of certain minds with vested political interests. I want to make this clear... we are not supposed to take Kerala backwards, but better than what it was in 2016. There may be those who politically oppose us but it's not the job of (the) probe agencies to dance to their tunes," the Chief Minister said.
The Chief Minister's repeated public attacks on the central probe agencies come at a time when multiple probe agencies have been investigating various cases in the state, and have sought explanation from the state government on various flagship programmes.
Mr Vijayan said that various projects of the state government - including Life Mission, Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) or even Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) - were all aimed to aid development.
Kerala is preparing for the local body elections, which will be held in December while the state elections are expected by mid-2021.
A suspended IAS officer M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to Kerala Chief Minister, has been arrested in an alleged money laundering case linked to the gold smuggling case involving diplomatic baggage.
His petition for bail said he was forced to name a few political targets and was arrayed as an accused and arrested by the Enforcement Directorate after he refused to do so.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, though made passing references to this, but he said he would speak about this in detail the next time.
Among various allegations by the Enforcement Directorate before the court, the probe agency has alleged that M Sivsanakar knew all the accused in the gold smuggling case, and was sharing confidential information on government projects with one of the accused, Swapna Suresh, based on their WhatsApp chats.