TV channels splash old photo of Chandy, arrested woman

Thiruvananthapuram  : Some TV channels in Kerala Sunday night aired a picture of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy with Saritha S. Nair, a woman arrested for an alleged role in a scam related to solar panels.

The picture was telecast hours before the Left opposition’s proposed indefinite “secretariat siege”, demanding Chandy’s resignation over the scam.

The state secretariat is the seat of the Kerala government and the Left opposition has announced that starting Monday, no one will be allowed to enter until Chandy resigns over the solar scam.

Nair and her business partner in the controversial “Team Solar company” had allegedly duped numerous investors of Rs.7 crores and the scandal has come to be known as the “solar scam”.

The telephone call records of Nair showed that she had been in frequent touch with members of the chief minister’s personal staff, police said.

The alleged wrongdoings of the company became public in June and since then the Left opposition has been demanding the resignation of Chandy.

Nair and her partner are both behind bars along with Teny Jopan, the former personal assistant of Chandy.

After the chief minister’s photo with Nair was splashed across TV channels, his party colleague Sooranad Rajasekharan said the picture did not mean much.

“Chandy is accessible to anyone and anyone can meet him and say anything to him, so this does not mean anything,” said Rajasekharan.

Chandy earlier said in the Kerala assembly that he was told by his party workers that Nair was also present at a function in Kottayam district and this picture was taken there.

Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said Chandy should resign at the earliest.