In a bold move, senior Congress leader and former Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has filed a breach of privilege notice against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He accuses the CM of misleading the Kerala Assembly with “false and unsubstantiated” claims about police dismissals. This drama unfolded in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, heating up the political scene in Kerala.
The notice comes under Rule 154 of the Assembly’s rules, right after a fiery debate earlier this week on police excesses. Opposition members clashed with the ruling Treasury benches, putting the spotlight on how the government handles misconduct in the police force.
During the session, CM Vijayan responded to Congress MLA Roji M. John by claiming that since 2016, as many as 144 police officers involved in serious crimes had been kicked out of service. But Chennithala isn’t buying it. He says the CM offered no names, ranks, or proof to back up those numbers.
“The figures are totally baseless,” Chennithala charged in his notice. “Even the Home Department has no official records to support the Chief Minister’s statement on police dismissals.” He pointed out that many officers accused of major offences or recommended for firing are still holding important posts in the Kerala police.
Chennithala went further, arguing that most of the so-called dismissals weren’t for criminal acts at all. “They were just for being absent without leave or going AWOL for too long,” he said, slamming the CM’s claims on police misconduct in Kerala.
To drive his point home, Chennithala dug up the CM’s own past statements in the Assembly. Back in January this year, Vijayan admitted that 18 officers linked to criminal gangs were still on the job, and 14 who got suspended for similar issues had been brought back. In March, he even confessed that the government doesn’t have full details of criminal cases against police officers from previous regimes.
Chennithala also accused Vijayan of twisting facts to badmouth the earlier Congress-led UDF government in Kerala. “From 2011 to 2016, we dismissed 61 police officers for disciplinary and criminal reasons,” he revealed. “But the CM falsely claimed no action happened during our time.”
Calling the CM’s tally of 144 dismissals over his two terms “factually wrong and misleading,” Chennithala has urged Assembly Speaker A.N. Shamseer to let him bring a breach of privilege motion. “This was a deliberate try to fool the House without real evidence,” he alleged.
As this Kerala political controversy brews, all eyes are on how the Assembly responds to these serious charges against the Chief Minister. Stay tuned for updates on the police department row and Assembly proceedings.
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