Kerala Finance Minister spends night in state Assembly as opposition lays siege

Thiruvananthapuram: In an unprecedented development, finance minister K. M. Mani on Thursday decided to spend the night in Assembly complex to circumvent massive protests of the LDF and Yuva Morcha to prevent him from presenting the Budget on Friday.

With Mr Mani deciding to stay put there, the Opposition was also forced to shift its focus on the Assembly complex.

Led by 93-year-old Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan, 64 LDF legislators decided to spend the night in the Assembly to prevent the tainted minister from reading out the Budget speech on the floor of the House.

The LDF MLAs began their protest in the well of the House earlier in the day and they remained there after it was adjourned for the day.

Mr Mani’s room No 617 has been heavily guarded by watch and ward staff. A team of officials of his department are camping in a separate room.

Though there were reports that the chief minister would also stay in the Assembly complex overnight, his office said he would be leaving Cliff House only on Friday morning. Other ministers would also take a call on staying in Assembly building only on the basis of police inputs.

While the LDF has decided only to block Mr Mani, the police is not sure about the Yuva Morcha plans. The BJP youth leadership has made it clear that it was not for any “adjustment agitation” and would block other ministers as well.

Taking this into account, the police has sanitised the Palayam underpass road and kept it open for VIP movement.

Curfew like situation prevails outside the Legislature complex, with hundreds of cops taking full control of the entire area to prevent protesters from disrupting Budget presentation. While the activists have blocked all entry points to the Assembly complex, the police has raised barricades to block the agitators.

High drama was witnessed on Thursday ahead of Mr Mani’s decision to stay put in Assembly complex to avert a direct showdown with opposition workers. Chief minister Oommen Chandy advised Mr Mani to stay back as the finance minister had earlier announced that he would arrive at Assembly complex from his official residence Prashanthi in Nanthancode on Friday.

The distance between finance minister’s residence and Assembly complex is a good two kms and sanitising the entire area would have been a tough call for the cops.

Earlier, the chief minister wrote to Governor P Sathasivam informing him that Mr Mani would present the budget on Friday. The information was conveyed to Governor in the wake of LDF’s petition to Governor seeking his intervention to stop Mr Mani.

The LDF strategy is to block the five entrances to the main hall. Legislators led by Mr Achuthanandan, Mr Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, C. Divakaran, Mathew T. Thomas and A. K. Saseendran will block these entrances to prevent Mr Mani from entering the hall on Friday morning.

In the event of Mr Mani managing to enter the hall with the help of watch and ward staff, the LDF MLAs would attempt to snatch budget documents from the minister’s hands making it difficult for him to make his speech.

LDF Convener Vaikom Viswan told reporters that with Mr Mani deciding to stay inside, the focus of the stir had shifted there. “LDF workers will hold a strong protest outside Assembly, ” he added.

As a precautionary measure, the district administration shut down all bars and liquor outlets within seven-km area of the Assembly complex. The decision was taken to avoid any law and order problems in the city in the wake of the agitation.

The Bar bribery issue continued to rock the Assembly on Thursday with CPM led LDF staging sit-in at the well of the House after disrupting the proceedings demanding Mr Mani’s resignation. This was after the ruling front making it categorically clear that Mr Mani himself would present the Budget in the midst of the Opposition threat that they would prevent him from presenting the budget.

Opposition leader V. S. Achuthanandan made it clear that the UDF would have to face the consequences if they allowed 'tainted’ Mani present the budget and Chandy alone would be responsible for it. Mr Mani who ridiculed the corruption charges by the opposition said that his 50-year-long public life was transparent. All allegations were baseless. “It’s purposefully aimed at tarnishing my image,” he said.