Hyderabad: The Kerala state capital on Monday and Tuesday witnessed violent protests by Public Service Commission (PSC) rank list holders, where two candidates attempted self-immolation, pressing on their demand to extend the validity of the existing rank lists.
Though the Cabinet had extended the validity of the existing PSC rank lists by another six months last week considering the difficulties caused by the Covid pandemic, the candidates are not convinced and continue to protest, presumably with the support of other opposition political parties who are trying to cash in on the angst of the youngsters when Assembly polls are round the corner.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in his ongoing interaction with university students, had clarified that temporary employees who had been serving the government for several years are being regularised on humanitarian grounds and that such regularisation is in no way going to affect the prospects of the current PSC rank list holders.
But the candidates are not ready to be pacified and are continuing their protests, slapping a major blow to the chances of the Left Democratic Front, which was confident of getting a consecutive term in the Kerala Assembly. The UDF camp, which was hitherto devoid of a proper election issue to raise against the ruling front, apart from the Sabarimala row, is now confident of taking the issue of backdoor appointments as a major election issue, with their youth wings like Youth Congress, KSU, Youth League and MSF leading the protests in various centres in the state.
Read: Confidence v confusion: LDF to campaign on achievements, UDF on Sabarimala
It all started with the government's decision to regularise 114 employees at the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology. The issue of nepotism and backdoor appointments had gathered ground when the issue of appointment of Swapna Suresh, an accused in the Embassy gold smuggling case, in the Government IT department came out. Later the government clarified that Swapna was not appointed by the government or in the government IT department, but was appointed by an outsourcing agency as its staff, which undertook works of the IT department.
However, Swapna's close links with the former Principal Secretary to the government, M Sivasankar, who was also arrested in the gold smuggling case, overshadowed the claims of the government, leading to a presumption that some irregularities do happen in such temporary appointments in government departments.
Adding fuel to the fire, two leaked audio tapes, reported to be that of Solar case accused Saritha Nair, give out details of backdoor appointments in government departments. The leaked audio clips, (time of recording or voice authenticity of those clips could not be independently verified by ETV Bharat), speak about how she managed her contacts with the political party she has been helping and with the government officials to manage back door appointments in government departments like BEVCO, Arogya Keralam Mission etc. She makes a more grievous remark that 60 per cent of the money she collects for such appointments go towards the 'party fund' and some for the officials. Saritha Nair is also accused in a job scam where she allegedly collected Rs 21 lakh for backdoor appointment and failed to get the payee a job.
Read: UDF raises Sabarimala plank as Nadda arrives in Kerala
The Solar Scam was a major election issue against the ruling front UDF in 2016, where Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and various ministers of the ruling cabinet were accused of corruption and sexual exploitation. The case was later dropped by the present government for want of evidence. However, the sexual harassment case filed by the accused Saritha S Nair is still under investigation.
The cards LDF is planning to play on the election table this time, that of development, social welfare schemes and corruption-free governance, are all set to be countered with these allegations of corruption and nepotism in temporary appointments and regularisation of such employees. LDF will have to formulate a new strategy to effectively defend its stand and to come out clean on such serious allegations.
LDF was happy about the way the UDF was approaching the election. With factional feud hitting the top gear in Congress, Indian Union Muslim League playing a leadership role in the coalition and their alliance with religious extreme groups like Welfare Party and SDPI, UDF was on weaker ground. LDF was hopeful of garnering the traditional UDF vote banks, which they successfully did during the local body elections.
Read: Cong to campaign against back-door recruitments in Kerala: Chennithala
However, their plans now have a serious setback with youngsters hitting the streets with protests against backdoor appointments and UDF and BJP taking this issue as a major campaign material. The only strand of stray that the LDF could hold on to pull over is that there are evidences coming out regarding such backdoor appointments in the government during the last UDF regime also.
Some leaked documents (the authenticity of such documents could not be independently verified by ETV Bharat), claimed that such appointments were carried out during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 to various government departments and alleged that employees with as little as five years of service had been regularised.
What Kerala is going to witness is an intense war of words, facts and figures from both leading fronts. It needs to be seen which front is going to win over the confidence of the people through their arguments and counter-narratives and ultimately win the elections.
Read: Kerala: Land where caste, community, religion pivotal in vote bank politics
