Date: 
10.10.2009

Revolution now begins at home. Senior CPM leader and Kerala Health Minister P K Sreemathi appointed her daughter-in-law in her personal staff as a cook and promoted her as additional personal assistant within a year.

That’s not all. The post was vacated by Sreemathi’s nephew and the son of another senior CPM leader, E P Jayarajan.

Both Sreemathi and her brother-in-law Jayarajan are members of CPM’s Central Committee.

On taking charge in June, 2006, Sreemathi appointed her daughter-in law Dhanya V Nair as a cook and her nephew Jijinth Raj as a clerk.

Raj was appointed overruling the objections from the General Administration Department. His posting had to be cleared by Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan as it violated the existing staff pattern. Raj was accommodated as the 19th member of the minister’s staff while the permitted strength was 15.

Raj resigned from the post on October 30, 2006, when he got a job abroad. Sreemathi promoted her daughter-in-law to that post the next day. In July 2007, she was promoted again as a gazetted officer. From a cook’s scale of Rs 4,300-5,930, the daughter-in-law’s salary rose to the scale of 10,790-18,000 in 11 months.

Dhanya’s promotion, too, was not according to the rules and it required Achuthanandan’s sanction. However, Sreemathi was forced to drop her daughter-in law from her personal staff in June 2008, after a section in the party raised the issue of favouritism. By then, however, she had completed two years of service, making her eligible for pension.

The saga of blatant nepotism has been reported, along with copies of documents and government orders, in the latest issue of Janashakti, a weekly launched by CPM dissidents and Achuthanandan loyalists.

The minister was not available for comment as she was on an official tour to the Gulf.

“This has been published by the weekly with an eye on the bypolls to the state assembly,” said A C Mathew, her private secretary.

City: 
Thiruvananthapuram
Source url: 
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cpm-minister-appoints-daughterinlaw-as-coo/527426/
Press Clippings : 
Author: 
Shaju Philip
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