Narayanaswamy says his run-ins are only because he can’t help being “stubborn” when things turn “unjustifiable.” Like when he refused permission to a real-estate businessman to fill up a large paddy farm — it would have deluged some 50 poor village homes nearby with waste from the adjacent government hospital. And when he refused to sanction payment for a badly built earthen bund costing several crores meant to help poor farmers — he was proved right when the bund dissolved and vanished in the rains.

He was made to go on forced leave as managing director of the state Marketing Federation (MARKETFED) after refusing to play ball with the chairman, a senior politician. He was shunted to sinecure assignments, even posted to work under junior officers.

When Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan wanted encroachers in Munnar driven out, Narayanaswamy was one of the CM’s three handpicked men. Even senior CPM leaders objected to his choice but VS stood his ground.

The Kuruvila affair is the latest. The Minister’s children had taken Rs 6.5 crore from an NRI businessman promising to sell him some prime land, soon suspected to be encroached. The sale did not happen, the NRI went public while Kuruvila maintained everything was above board. Narayanaswamy probed the land the Minister’s children were to sell: he reported that a good part of the land they purveyed was government land, some suspectedly benami. Kuruvila could only agree to quit.