THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after the Enforcement Directorate initiated an investigation into a money laundering case involving Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan’s IT firm and the Cochin-based mining firm CMRL, the CM and the CPI(M) are treading cautiously.
The case is already being probed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO). And, this is the first time in CM Vijayan’s more than five-decade old political career that things have taken a serious turn.
In 2020 when the infamous gold smuggling case surfaced, CM Vijayan’s closest aide and senior IAS official M. Sivasankar had to cool his heels in jail for several weeks. But the CM remained largely unscathed.
But now both CM Vijayan and the party’s top brass are engaged in legal consultations on how to tackle the case, as the fate of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is there to be seen.
It was ED's Kochi office which has filed an ECIR in the case. The ECIR is similar to the FIR lodged by the police for cognizable offences.
CM Vijayan is feeling the heat as the ED probe has started at a time when the SFIO has completed a crucial first round of investigation. As per sources, the SFIO or ED will serve a notice to Veena Vijayan to appear.
All this is happening as parties prepare for the Lok Sabha elections on April 26 when the state goes to polls.
Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan, said, “All know the noise created by the ED and the CBI in the gold smuggling, the Life Mission corruption and the Karuvannur Cooperative bank cases. Can someone let us know what has happened to all those cases. By now everyone knows that the BJP and the CPI(M) are hand in glove and the present move by the Centre is nothing but an election stunt to convey to the electorate that they are at loggerheads. It is now crystal clear that the common enemy of the BJP and CPI(M) is the Congress."
CPI(M) state secretary M.V. Govindan, however, played down the ED move by saying that "what needs to be done will be done at the appropriate time".
This issue was first raised last year by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan on the basis of a media report, which quoted an Income Tax Department officer as saying that "CM Vijayan’s daughter Veena Vijayan’s IT firm Exalogic had received Rs 1.72 crore from the mining company CMRL, in which the KSIDC has around 13 per cent stake".