Kerala Assembly: Stormy session on the cards as House set to convene ahead of local body polls

A politically tumultuous sitting appears to be in the offing as the 13th session of the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly commences on Friday (January 17, 2025).
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

On the face of it, the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) seemed to have dampened the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition’s move to attack the government on the House floor by pushing the Kerala Forest (Amendment) Bill, 2024 to the back burner. 

However, the LDF’s gambit to snatch the wind from the UDF’s sails on the animating issue will unlikely put the Opposition on the back foot in the Assembly.

It will seek to hold the government to account for its alleged failure to prevent “increasing” wild animal attacks on humans and economically devastating raids on croplands by marauding wild elephants and feral boars.

On Wednesday (January 15, 2025), Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan appeared to take an early defence by stating that the Wild Life Act of 1972 precluded the State government from effectively mitigating human-wildlife conflict. 

A host of issues

A senior Opposition leader told The Hindu that the UDF has several issues to hold the government’s feet to the fire in the Assembly.

He said the Opposition would rake up the Cabinet’s “dubious, unilateral and norm-breaking” decision to award a global liquor company brewing and distilling permits.

The UDF will also raise the Kerala Finance Corporation’s “loss-making and commission-driven” decision to invest taxpayers’ money in a fiscally backsliding non-banking financial firm despite “cautionary red flags raised by various government agencies”.

The UDF will also seek to put the government on the dock on women and child protection in the wake of the serial abuse of a minor Dalit girl in Pathanamthitta. 

The circumstances that led to the suspected death by suicide of former Kannur Additional District Magistrate Naveen Babu, the parole accorded to Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] workers convicted for the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T.P. Chandrasekharan, the “political and legal cover” for the Periye murder case accused, Thrissur Pooram “disruption”, former Nilambur MLA P.V. Anvar’s accusations against the government, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‘s win in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency in 2024 General Elections, suicide abetment case against Congress legislator I.C. Balakrishnan and UDF’s alleged “electoral accord” with Islamist and Hindutva forces will likely ignite fiery political debates in the House.

On the same page

Nevertheless, both fronts might find themselves on the same page in passing a resolution against the “anti-federal” draft of University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations that seek to give Governors officiating as Chancellors “absolute authority” over autonomous State-funded varsities.