Despite the controversy surrounding the proposed GNA power purchase initiative, the issue did not figure in the Kerala cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan and Power Minister Sunny Joseph, who is also the president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, maintained a studied silence on the matter.
None of the other ministers raised the issue either, apparently mindful of the need to avoid further embarrassment for a government that assumed office barely six months ago. The opposition has questioned whether the government has lost its collective responsibility.
At the meeting, Sunny Joseph presented a proposal related to the Kerala State Electricity Board, to enhance the compensation awarded to people affected by the laying of the 400 kV transmission line in Malabar. His intervention initially raised expectations among his cabinet colleagues that he might also raise the contentious GNA issue.
However, despite an elaborate discussion on the compensation proposal, neither Satheesan nor Sunny Joseph spoke about the power purchase initiative. A minister later said that each one of them wanted the matter to subside, and that both the Chief Minister and the power minister had behaved maturely by not speaking.
A Rift Inside The Congress
The controversy has triggered fresh divisions within the Congress. This is the first time that a leader holding the stature of KPCC president has publicly differed with the chief minister on a major policy issue.
Unlike his predecessor, Sunny Joseph, who is regarded as a gentleman politician, has largely avoided open confrontation with Satheesan, both when the latter was the leader of the opposition and now as Chief Minister. The public disagreement over the GNA initiative has changed that pattern.
The row follows UDF convener Adoor Prakash ridiculing the cabinet's collective responsibility, which has added to the political significance of the dispute. A Congress leader said the Chief Minister's remark that he was not someone who would sign on the dotted line simply because he was asked to do so, and the KPCC president's statement that he learnt about the proposed purchase only through the media, showed the differences between them.
Questions have also been raised over the chief secretary's role, with allegations that he misled the chief minister and made the situation worse. Though GNA is only a power trading platform, the power minister's office and the electricity board were allegedly kept in the dark about the sources from which the electricity was to be purchased.
Power Purchases Continue
While the Chief Minister has maintained that there was no power crisis, data from the electricity board show that the state continued to purchase substantial quantities of electricity from outside. According to the board, Kerala purchased 800 MW of electricity from outside on Monday and around 700 MW each on Tuesday and Wednesday.
There is also discontent among IAS officers over the transfer of KSEB chairman and managing director M. G. Rajamanickam, after he reportedly opposed the proposed GNA power purchase initiative. Officials said the board's officers and the then CMD had met the Chief Minister and tried to convince him, and the minister had put his dissenting opinion on record in the file.
At a press conference on 4 November, however, the Chief Minister said he had decided to purchase power through GNA. Secretariat sources said the government has since decided to backtrack from the proposal, after the new KSEB CMD, N. Prasanth, and the Additional Chief Secretary in charge of Power, Puneet Kumar, reportedly cautioned the Chief Minister and the chief secretary about the consequences of signing the agreement.
A senior bureaucrat said the government is reluctant to proceed with the agreement to purchase electricity for now, in an attempt to save face amid the controversy. The issue has widened the gap between Sunny Joseph steering the Congress party and the Chief Minister leading the government, and the silence in the cabinet has only made that gap more visible.
