Political battles are like bloodlust-inducing video games. Each killing earns more points, infuses extra power.
So now that a powerful secretary has been felled, the opposition has in its cross hairs Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan himself. "Anything less than the resignation of the chief minister is unacceptable," opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said on Friday.
To sustain the pressure on the Pinarayi Vijayan government and also to amplify its humiliation in the gold smuggling scandal, Congress legislator V D Satheesan has sought leave to move a 'no confidence' motion against the LDF government on July 27, the day the Finance Bill is scheduled to be taken up.
With only 43 members on its side, as opposed to 91 on the LDF side, the motion is not no going to trigger any immediate existential scare in the Pinarayi government.
"Technically, the motion could be defeated," Chennithala himself conceded. "But it will be symbolic of the people's lack of confidence in the government," he said.
The opposition hope is that all the arguments and evidence it could summon to slight and embarrass Pinarayi Vijayan and his government during the 'no confidence' debate, even if it will not topple the government, could at least decisively alter public perception.
In short, they would like the 'no confidence' debate n the Assembly on July 27 to be the UDF's first major pitch for power in 2021, the official start of their campaign to recapture power.
Besides what the opposition calls the mess in the Chief Minister's Office, there is the long list of charges that will get a new lease of life inside the Assembly, namely the Sprinklr deal, the Pampa sand removal controversy, the Bevco app issue, the deal with a German company for the E-Mobilty project and the chief minister's alleged affinity for the audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
This is not all. Higher education minister K T Jaleel's acceptance of 'gifts' from the UAE Consulate, in the form of Ramzan kits, without getting the Centre's sanction would also come under the scanner. By extension, his and his staff's links with the accused in gold smuggling.
Even before Satheesan sought leave for a 'no conficence' motion, Muslim League leader M Ummer has served notice to the Legislative secretary to initiate steps to remove P Sreeramakrishnan from the post of speaker for behaviour that was unbecoming of a person holding an exalted Constitutional post like the speaker.
The charge against Sreeramakrishnan is that he had inaugurated a shop owned by Sandeep Nair, an accused in the gold smuggling case, at the coaxing of Swapna Suresh, another accused.
Any discussion in the Assembly on the speaker's close ties with Swapna could potentially dent the LDF's prestige. The opposition leader has also made veiled references to the speaker's UAE travels, hinting that the UDF is ready with enough dirt to hurl at the speaker.
The opposition leader has already declared he has no confidence in any state-level probe into the various aspects of the gold smuggling scandal. Chennithala has sought a CBI enquiry into not just what he terms "illegal, backdoor" postings in the Department but also into all deals and agreements struck by the 24-odd committees that were chaired by M Sivasankar.
The chief minister but has ruled it out for the moment saying that the Kerala Police was doing a good job.
