With Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson due to retire on Sunday, CM Oommen Chandy’s decision to nominate him as his Advisor with Cabinet rank has drawn much flak.

Leader of the Opposition VS Achuthanandan has come down heavily on Chandy for the last-minute appointment of Thomson as the CM’s Advisor just hours before the latter’s retirement from government service.

In an oblique reference to the Palmolein scam, Achuthanandan said that the ruling front’s tendency to reward all those bureaucrats who stood by their corrupt practices are now being rewarded without a thought to the increasing financial burden incurred by the state exchequer.

With hardly a week left for the assembly election dates to be announced, Achuthanandan affirmed that he was at a loss to understand what kind of advice the state cabinet needed at a time when hardly any significant policy decision would be made or implemented.

Achuthanandan added that in such a scenario other then advising the CM on how to get out the current political imbroglio the UDF finds itself in, Jiji had nothing much to do in his new official capacity and for that there was simply no need to create a superfluous position with cabinet ranking.