CM Oommen Chandy fumes over his non remarks on liquor

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For a moment it seemed that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had politically shot himself in the foot. It was reported that the Chief Minister  stated at the State-Level Bankers’ Committee Meeting on Friday that the state’s prohibition policy would turn tourists away and adversely affect the tourism sector, especially backwater tourism.

The Chief Minister was also said to have remarked  that the liquor policy would hit the houseboat industry and that 500-odd houseboat owners would find it difficult to pay back their loans.

The Chief Minister, however, was quick to refute the reports.

“I have not even seen the observations the media has attributed to me. That being the case how can you say that I have made such statements,” an apparently angry Mr Chandy told reporters here on Friday.

The Chief Minister’s office, in a statement released to the media, said that Mr Chandy had neither attended the meet nor read out a statement.

The statements attributed to Mr Chandy were part of a memorandum prepared by the Houseboat Owners’ Association and sent by post to the Chief Minister’s office. “What the CM’s office did was to merely forward the memorandum  to the bankers’ committee,” the CM’s office said.

What precipitated the issue, according to the CM’s office, was the decision of the bankers’ committee to wrongly describe in its agenda note that the memorandum of the Houseboat Owners Association was a recommendation made by the CM’s office. “Such a direction has not been given by the CM’s office,” the release said.