The Congress on Monday attempted to push the controversy surrounding the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) notice to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s private secretary C.M. Raveendran to the forefront of public debate.
The ED had summoned Mr. Raveendran concerning money laundering charges in the LIFE Mission corruption case. The ED’s notice to Mr. Raveendran comes close on the heels of the agency’s high-profile arrest and remand of retired bureaucrat and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former principal secretary M. Sivasankar on charges related to concealment of ill-gotten wealth.
Complaint in 2020
The ED’s case against higher-ups in the current and previous Pinarayi Vijayan administrations has its provenance in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the LIFE Mission “corruption” prompted by Congress leader Anil Akkara’s complaint in 2020.
Given the ongoing Assembly session, Mr. Raveendran has reportedly pleaded inability to appear before the ED. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran, MP, seized on Mr. Raveendran’s “disinclination” to appear before the ED to assail Mr. Vijayan.
Mr. Sudhakaran said Mr. Vijayan was shielding Mr. Raveendran from the probe out of fear that he would face legal jeopardy if his private secretary spilt the beans to the ED. He said Mr. Raveendran had no role in the Assembly proceedings.
“Instead of appearing before the ED, Mr. Raveendran has scrambled for cover in Mr. Vijayan’s office in the Assembly. The Chief Minister knows he could ill afford to protect Mr. Raveendran for long. Mr. Vijayan would soon disavow his long-time confidant and enabler to insulate himself from the ED investigation,” he said.
Corruption charge
Mr. Sudhakaran said UAE gold smuggling case Swapna Suresh’s depositions against the Chief Minister’s office and WhatsApp exchanges with top officials indicated the swath and depth of the corruption that gripped the successive Pinarayi Vijayan governments.
During the previous administration, the Cabinet had withdrawn the general consent to the CBI to investigate cases within Kerala’s territorial jurisdiction, including LIFE Mission corruption. It also challenged the CBI’s probe in the Supreme Court (SC).
Consequently, in an SC filing, the CBI claimed it had evidence that a cabal of top government officials and former UAE consulate employees, some of them accused in the gold smuggling case, had conspired to siphon off an estimated ₹4.5 crore as commission from a ₹20-crore UAE Red Crescent largesse to the LIFE Mission to construct 140 modern apartments for the flood-displaced needy families in Thrissur.
The Opposition will likely make a political issue of ED’s notice to Mr. Raveendran in the Assembly to put the government on the defensive.
