Opposition leader Oommen Chandy on Friday threw hints that he may step aside from the electoral turf if he was made an accused in the Palmolein import case.
“I am not one to hang on technicalities,” he told mediapersons at the KPCC headquarters here. “If something like that happens, I will face it morally and legally. I will not try to wriggle out of the situation. There is no need to explain it further.”
When asked whether his stance on the issue had created confusion among the Congress workers who saw him as a chief ministerial candidate, Mr Chandy said, “There is no confusion. My stance is clear.”
Mr Chandy asked the Left Democratic Front government to come clear on what additional proof it has to accused the Opposition leader in the case.
“For 20 years, they found nothing against me,” he said. “The vigilance made me a witness and not an accused and there was no move in the last five years of the LDF government’s term. At the fag end of the term, they are doing this. I know why they are acting this way.”
When asked whether such a political move ought not to be faced politically, Mr Chandy reiterated; “I will face it ethically.”
Mr Chandy also dismissed finance minister Thomas Isaac’s talk about some “key files” implicating him and said they had all been placed on the table of the Assembly two decades ago.
The case revolves around the import of palmolein from Malaysia in 1992 when K. Karunakaran was the chief minister and Mr Chandy was the finance minister.