The CBI officials on Tuesday arrived at the Cliff House — Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s official residence — to probe a complaint of the prime accused in the infamous solar scam that she was sexually attacked by the previous resident of the house, Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
While serving as the chief minister from 2011-16, Chandy, along with his family and staff, resided in the Cliff House.
The CBI has registered six cases based on the prime accused’s complaint in the solar scam that she was sexually attacked by six top leaders which includes five top Congress leaders –Chandy, Lok Sabha member Adoor Prakash, AICC general secretary
(Organisation) Hibi Eden, Rajya Sabha member K.C.Venugopal and former State Minister and Congress legislator A.P.Anil Kumar besides national BJP vice-president A.P. Abdulla Kutty.
In the presence of the complainant, the team will collect the evidence from the house.
She was called to the Cliff House in 2012 by the then security official of Chandy, the complaint reads. And she was sexually abused by Chandy there.
On April 5, the probing team, along with the ‘victim’ arrived at the high security Kerala Legislative quarters as part of evidence collection in the case against Eden.
Incidentally, the ‘victim’ had raised a complaint against Vijayan, who handed it over to the CBI.
Just before the April 2021 Assembly polls, Vijayan forwarded the petition to the CBI, which agreed to take up the probe.
Following this, the CBI by now has filed three cases at the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court, here and one case in the CJM Kochi court.
However, the Kerala Police probe had earlier found out that there was nothing to prove the crime that and Chandy all along have said he has done no wrong and does not fear anything and will fully cooperate with the probe.
One of the main reasons behind Chandy government not getting a second term in 2016 was the scams involving the ‘victim’ and few others of the Chandy’s office, which the Left used widely in their election campaign in 2016.
The woman and her then live-in partner reportedly went around selling solar schemes and collected money from several people and cheated them. In between, her links with a few office staff of Chandy surfaced, which became the biggest campaign issue of the Left.
This was one reason why the Congress-led UDF government which was aiming for a second term in 2016, suffered a rout and for all practical purpose, after this shocker, the party has never been able to regain its lost glory and it continues to haunt the top leaders.