Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress political affairs committee will discuss the fallout of the solar commission report and the uncertainty over the KPCC governing council list at a meeting here on Saturday. KPCC president M. M. Hassan wants to unitedly fight the solar scam allegations against former chief minister Oommen Chandy and other Congress leaders. In the 21-member PAC, there are five ‘A’ group leaders – Chandy, Hassan, K. C. Joseph, Benny Behanan and P. C. Vishnunath.
Among these, only Hassan and Joseph are not involved in the solar scam. Former KPCC president K. Muraleedharan will also defend Mr Chandy. He has demanded that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan should apologise to the Congress for seeking legal opinion for the second time on the scam. The ‘A’ camp is apprehensive of how former KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran and party vice- president V. D. Satheesan would react. Mr Satheesan has already fired the first salvo at the tainted leaders.
AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi has directed senior leaders and top lawyers at the Supreme Court, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, to appear for Mr Chandy in the court, said an ‘A’ group leader. “Chandy has the support of Rahul Gandhi. At a later stage, Sibal and Singhvi will appear for Chandy,” he said. Mr Sudheeran has asked the AICC leadership to keep out tainted leaders from the KPCC list. This has led to the delay in announcing the list when 28 other states and seven union territories have formed their PCC governing councils.
Mr Sudheeran will protest against Mr Hassan for not allowing AICC’s returning officer to the state, Sudarshan Nachiappan, to attend the last PAC meeting on September 13. If he had attended, he would not have allowed the two groups to share the seats, said a source. “Nachiappan would have given the criteria for the list and avoided the dilemma facing the KPCC now,” said the source.
