Attempting to put to rest the controversy over the appointment of Devaswom special government pleader K.B. Pradeep, Kerala Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan on Wednesday said the State government had not allocated specific departments to any of the government pleaders it had appointed last week.

Opposition parties had criticised the State government on the appointment of Mr. Pradeep, whom they alleged to have represented the Chennai-based Smart Creations, a firm under the cloud of suspicion in the Sabarimala gold theft case. Mr.Pradeep stepped down following the controversy.

“Although the government appointed 80 government pleaders, it has not allocated any of them to specific departments. The departments were to be decided only after consultations to be held following the Budget. We don’t have a system to check whom all each of these 80 pleaders represented in the courts in the past. As soon as this mistake was pointed out, we corrected it,” he said.

Mr.Satheesan said that the claim that the decision was taken without the knowledge of the Cabinet was “false.” Copies of the decision were handed over to all the Cabinet colleagues. However, the entire responsibility of the decision rests with him, he said.

He said that the reports of the UDF government withdrawing the LDF government’s Sthree Suraksha Scheme to provide a monthly pension of ₹1,000 to unemployed women as well as transwomen were false.

“The previous government announced this scheme at the fag end of its term. We need to look into the details of the beneficiaries as there have been complaints regarding the same,” he said.

Regarding the alleged shortage in medicines to treat Nipah, he said that one medicine which was not available was procured within 24 hours from Bahrain.

He said the arrest of a local leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in the ‘kafir screenshot’ case revealed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]’s “game plan of sowing communal divisions for electoral dividends.” He accused the CPI(M) of “going by the Sangh Parivar playbook” to win the Lok Sabha elections in Vadakara.