Two women and a man with a supporting cast consisting of bit players in politics working from the sanctity of the chief minister's office, are hogging the headlines in Kerala in what is alleged to be the greatest con in recent history. The accusation against the trio and their accomplices is that they have either used the chief minister's name or were backed by that political worthy to con businessmen to invest in a bogus company promoting solar power. (Like most narratives in the state there are variations in the story depending upon who is the narrator.)
Whichever version one goes with, and the innumerable scams reported from Kerala, the inescapable fact is that a large section of those who pass themselves off as businessmen in the state lack even the smallest portion of business acumen. Otherwise, how could they have handed over large sums of cash without verifying the asset and credit base of Team Solar?
This oversight is matched by the chief minister Oomen Chandy's blindness to the goings on in his official household where different members functioned as facilitators for Team Solar. Even if we take his protestation of innocence at face value, the fact that he was unaware about what was happening under his own nose is an eloquent comment on his incompetence. For that one reason he should quit.
The Team Solar case is not a unique one. Even as the Solar case is consuming many column centimetres of newsprint and launching multiple charges of the breaking news brigade on TV channels, a foreign currency scam reportedly amounting to over Rs. 400 crore is playing to full house in Trichur district. In this scam too, according to a newspaper the players used "forged letters and photographs of the chief minister and union ministers to dupe the investors". This brings us to the second fact of doing business in the state: show your proximity to the powers-that-be to allay doubts and get purse strings opened.
This technique is not new. For many years pseudo-beggars have been using forged letters from hospitals and religious heads to collect money for treating unpronounceable illnesses. What is different today is that men and women in fashionable clothes use politicians' photos to dupe supposedly smart businessmen!
It is another aspect of the Kerala Model. In a perverse way this change over the years could be called progress.
