Kerala Assembly likely to witness an explosive new session

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fudged Covid death figures, tree felling worth over Rs 150 crore based on a government order, a loan fraud at a CPI-M controlled Cooperative bank and the infamous gold smuggling case -- are all going to reverberate in the upcoming session of the Kerala Assembly which beings on Thursday.

This would be the second session of the 15th Kerala Assembly and at the moment it's scheduled to meet for 20 days and the session will come to a close on August 18, two days before the harvest festival of Kerala -- Onam begins, said the Speaker of the Assembly M.B. Rajesh.

"The session would comply with all Covid protocols and members who have not taken the vaccine jabs will be provided, besides facilities would be there to do RT-PCR and Antigen tests," said Rajesh.

Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan has already gone on record to say all the contentious issues would be raised vigorously on the floor of the house.

All eyes would be on the likely face-off between chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and first time legislator K.K. Rema, widow of the slain former CPI-M leader T.P. Chandrasekheran whose son and N. Venu, a top leader of Revolutionary Marxists Party (RMP) have reportedly received threatening letter that they will be killed.

Incidentally, the death warrant in the form of a letter was received at the Vadakara office of legislator K.K. Rema, wife of Chandrasekheran, who won the April 6 assembly polls from Vadakara constituency in Kozhikode district with the support of the Congress led UDF.

The letter states that both Abhinand Chandrasekheran and their top party leader Venu would be eliminated.

It also points out that a similar threat was extended to Chandrasekheran, but he did not take it seriously.

The letter states that CPI-M legislator A.M. Shamsheer who represents Thalassery constituency should not be attacked by them, when they appear for discussions in TV channels.

"We are not going to be cowed down by these threats," said Rema.