CM Oommen Chandy warms chair for Mani’s man

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: During peak office hours on Monday, the third floor of the Secretariat's 'sandwich block', the most happening place in the building after the Chief Minister's Office till six days ago, had a silent eeriness to it.

The name board hanging in front of the finance minister's cabin still read K. M. Mani but the corridor that zigzagged deep into the various wings of the finance minister's office was empty and felt hollow.

The minister's office, a burrow of sorts with closely arranged desks and chairs and arbitrary partitions, though awash in LED lights, was virtually vacant except for a lone khadi-clad staff busy scribbling something on a file in a corner.

"We are returning files back to the departments concerned. We have been given time till November 30 but, as you can see, we have already cleared out," the personal staff said.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has taken over, but it seems tentatively. All department files are now being sent to the CM. "Up until now, none of these files has returned from the CM's office. The chief minister has not convened any meeting either," a top Finance Department official said. This has fuelled rumours that Mani will soon appoint his own man to the post.

"Some of us will be asked to continue if Mani sir nominates his man," said Ajith Venniyoor, Mani's PRO who sits in a file-heavy, suffocating small room at the end of the long-winding corridor.

"The new minister can appoint his own team but since the time left is so little, it will be difficult for a new team to start from the scratch," Mr Venniyoor said.

Inside a wall-mounted glass case bang opposite the minster's shut cabin are copies of Mani's budget speeches, sundry propaganda leaflets and a copy of Mani's post-Marxian treatise 'The Theory of the Toiling Classes'; the entire collection having a discarded look with most of the books curved at the corners and falling awkwardly into each other.

A glossy pamphlet inside the glass case, announcing the arrival of a new book, 'K M Mani - A Study in Regionalism' by veteran journalist K. Govindankutty, nonetheless imparted the setting a profound irony.

The book's subtitle says: "Being and becoming bigger than his office - A chronicle of K M Mani's life and politics'. The book, obviously, was written before the resignation, but now the words look like a reproach, a warning.

New chairman for state FMs’ panel on GST

Now that K. M. Mani has stepped down, the new chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST will be chosen at the meeting of the committee to be held on November 20 to discuss the model GST law as well as the integrated GST or iGST legislation.

Whoever takes over from Mani as the state finance minister, sources said, will not automatically be the chairman. The mantle is expected to fall on the new Bihar chief minister.    

It has always been the practice to appoint the chairman from an opposition-ruled state. Mani had taken over from Abdul Rahim Rather, former finance minister of Jammu and Kashmir who had quit following the defeat of the National Conference in state elections held in December 2014.

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