Medical college scam: Amit Shah to decide on further action

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The two central BJP leaders, B. L. Santhosh who is the joint organising general secretary and H. Raja, secretary in charge of the State, will give a detailed report to national president Amit Shah on the medical college scam. Now the ball is in the court of the central leadership to take action against those leaders who have been involved in the scam as well as those who have been behind the conspiracy to implicate state general secretary M. T. Ramesh.

A peeved Ramesh has sought the appointment of Mr Shah to apprise him of the rival group's attempt to end his political career. Mr Santhosh and Mr Raja had attended the crucial core committee meeting here followed by the state office bearers meeting, and they will submit minutes of them to Mr Shah. But state BJP leaders told DC that action would not be taken immediately against leaders who "brought shame to the party." The central leadership has advised the state leaders to put all the blame on R. S. Vinod, the BJP co-operative cell convener whom they expelled, and wash their hands off.

Despite the core committee meeting recommending action against A. M. Nazeer, one of the enquiry panel members entrusted by state president Kummanam Rajasekharan, the central leadership take a decision in due course. “Action will be taken against Mr Nazeer for leaking the report and leaders who conspired. But I don’t think an immediate action will be taken against Nazeer or other leaders as the national leadership would prefer delaying tactics at this juncture”, said a top leader.

The party is concerned more about the enquiry commission leakage to the media than the bribe charges of Rs 5.60 crore given by Varkala based R. Shaji, owner of S. R. Medical College and Research Centre to R. S. Vinod who had in turn not handed over the said amount to Satheesh Nair, a power broker in New Delhi. The RSS state leadership has decided to probe the assets of the BJP’s top leaders including State office bearers after the central BJP leadership had received complaints that majority of them have accumulated assets disproportionate to their income. This has sent panic among leaders as already a prominent BJP leader based in Kochi had come under the scanner.