Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has summoned senior party leaders from Kerala in the wake of the State government’s decision to take legal action against a number of its leaders, including former chief minister Oommen Chandy. The Congress leaders have been indicted by a Judicial Commission probing the infamous solar scam.

Rahul will meeting the Congress’ Kerala brass in Delhi on Friday to form the party’s strategy to deal with issue, legally and politically.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala met senior party leader AK Antony here on Thursday and maintained that the CPI(M) is engaged in low-level politics to malign top leaders of the Congress-led UDF. Chennithala told reporters that the “selective leakage” of the judicial enquiry report was an attempt to settle scores with the Congress. He said the CPI(M) has used probe reports to serve its political purposes. Chennithala said legal action should not be taken on the basis of judicial reports before they are tabled in the State Assembly. “This is breach of privilege. The Chief Minister did not make the report available to the Opposition,” Chennithala said.

He said the CPI(M) was helping the BJP in diverting the people’s attention from the reports of money-laundering involving BJP president Amit Shah’s son. Chennithala said the Congress and the UDF will take on such attempts in a united manner.

Apart from Chennithala and Chandy, KPCC President MM Hasan and Vice-President VD Satheeshan are also expected to meet Rahul on the issue. The high-command apparently has advised the leaders to desist from making public comments on the report until it is tabled in the Assembly. A section of Congress leaders, including legislator VT Balram, have publicly voiced their displeasure at the way senior leaders were handling various cases when the Congress was in power between 2011 and 2016.

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