Thursday’s sentencing of the two kingpins in the solar scam has provided both the UDF and LDF with campaign issues for the June 27 Aruvikkara Assembly by-election.

Yesterday, Saritha S Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan were sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment by a magistrate court in Pathanamthitta in the first of about three dozen cases related to the scam.

On Friday morning, a TV channel aired footage shot on a spycam in which Saritha’s counsel Feny Balakrishnan is allegedly seen and heard saying that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, a few of his cabinet colleagues and other senior Congress leaders had given money to Saritha to settle her cases and cover up the scandal.

Opposition coalition LDF demanded Chandy’s resignation. CPI(M) Kerala secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said: “In the wake of the fresh revelations against Chandy, his cabinet colleague and Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash, and former Congress legislator Thampanoor Ravi — who according to the advocate has been an intermediary in handing money to Nair — a fresh case should be registered and Chandy should quit.”

Chandy hit back, saying: “This is the first time I am hearing of the new footage. Nothing of this sort has ever happened. After Thursday’s court verdict, some people are unhappy and hence new things have started to come out.”

Clean hands

Ruling coalition UDF has interpreted the sentencing as a vindication of its government’s stand that its hands are clean, and that it has not sought to protect anyone involved in the scam. Chandy on Friday said the court verdict proves that his government’s stand on the scam was “100 per cent right”. The fact that the two got sentenced shows the government had conducted the prosecution very well, he pointed out.

The convicts had fabricated the CM’s letterheads and forged his signature to garner deposits to their solar-panel supply firm. “All along, the media had been saying the accused used a letter written by me; but the court has said it was a forged letter. But many in the media ignored this point. Is this ethical journalism?” Chandy asked. The verdict was “a victory for the Congress government”, he added.

To reveal names

Meanwhile, Saritha told media persons that she would reveal all the “big names” involved in the sandal to the court in three days. She said she had been offered help by senior politicians, ministers and MLAs, but most of them had not kept their promises.

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