Overview
- Congress leader Benny Thomas submitted his resignation to Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan on Sunday, June 7, stepping down as Additional Private Secretary to Electricity Minister Sunny Joseph because the appointment had drawn public criticism.
- Minister Sunny Joseph confirmed the resignation and said he had defended the choice on the grounds of Thomas’s local political experience and the absence of formal eligibility criteria for ministers’ personal staff.
- The opposition CPI(M) and its youth wing publicly accused the government of nepotism and pressed the issue in the Kerala Assembly and in media statements.
- Internal Congress unease over the appointment surfaced during a KPCC executive meeting, with party members warning that such selections could damage the party’s reputation.
- The case highlights a wider procedural gap: there are no clear statutory rules for appointing personal staff to ministers, a point likely to shape party guidelines and scrutiny ahead of the state legislature’s next session.