Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 11 (IANS) The budget session of the Kerala assembly will start Friday and is expected to be stormy as the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is hit by factionalism and corruption charges against a top party leader. “The session would end on March 5 and the state budget for 2009-10 would be presented on Feb 20,” Speaker K. Radhakrishnan told reporters here Wednesday.

The opposition is expected to take on the ruling party after the CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan was named by the Central Bureau of Investigation as an accused in the SNC-Lavalin case.

Vijayan as the state power minister had awarded a contract to the Canadian company in 1997 for renovation of three power plants and the comptroller and auditor general had found out that there were irregularities in the contract.

The party has been, over the past few years, deeply divided with Kerala Chief Miniater V.S. Achuthanandan on one side and the Vijayan-led faction on the other.

Ever since the CBI action, Achuthanandan has hit back at Vijayan and decided not to take part in the state wide rally led by Vijayan.

The opposition is also expected to discredit the Left government over the Supreme Court’s verdict on Vizhinjam port project. The apex court Tuesday had upheld the Kerala High Court’s verdict asking the state government to consider Zoom Developers’ tender for the Rs.53.48-billion Vizhinjam port project.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had, through a tender, awarded the port project to a consortium of Hyderabad-based Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd, Malaysia-based Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd and Lanco Infrastructure Ltd and for technical reasons did not consider the proposal of Zoom, which then went to court.