C.M. Raveendran, Additional Private Secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, did not turn up before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently. The ED had issued a notice to Mr. Raveendran to appear before it to seek information regarding the alleged pay-off in awarding the contract for the LIFE Mission project at Wadakkanchery. Mr. Raveendran was in Thiruvananthapuram on that day. The agency had booked a case against the accused for money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
And in another turn of events a Kerala court refused to grant bail to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former Principal Secretary M Sivasankar who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the probe into the LIFE Mission case. All these instances point to the existence of a corrupt network of bureaucratic cronies surrounding the Chief Minister. There is a pertinent need to investigate and examine these corruptions in Kerala and understand how the communists are fattening up using public money.
LIFE Mission was a government project to provide free housing for the homeless and victims of the Kerala floods in 2018. The project aimed to build houses for 140 families in Thrissur’s Wadakkanchery region through the LIFE Mission scheme by spending Rs 14.50 crore out of Rs 20 crore granted by the Red Crescent via the UAE consulate. The contract also said the remaining amount would be used for the construction of a hospital. The Red Crescent is said to be a non-profit organisation supporting humanitarian work but has a questionable background. UNITAC Builders were given the construction contract. UNITAC managing director Santhosh Eapen said that all the accused had received a bribe worth Rs 4.48 crore for the project. Later, the government ordered a probe into the case. The LIFE mission complex at Thrissur came under suspicion after allegations of bribery. The other accused in the case are Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair. Accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and Sarith PS made allegations against Sivasankar that he had a role in this.
Irregularities in the scheme came to light when the ED was probing the gold smuggling case. The ED had reportedly got ₹2 crores in cash, and 2 kgs of gold from Swapna Suresh’s bank locker in October 2020. Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case, had told the ED that the money came from the commissions Sivasankar got from clinching a deal with The Red Crescent, an international aid group, for providing housing for 2018 flood victims in Wadakkanchery of Thrissur district. The investigation agency had earlier arrested M. Sivasankar, the former Principal Secretary to the Kerala Chief Minister, in connection with the case. Mr. Sivasankar is currently in judicial custody. Sivasankar had allegedly asked Swapna to keep the cash in her locker. The case, according to the investigation agency, is that a huge amount was syphoned off by the accused as commission from the funds released by an overseas organisation for the housing project.
The agency contended that the money found in the bank locker of Swapna Suresh, another accused in the money-laundering case booked earlier, was part of the commission the accused had received. In the meantime, leaked chats between these secretaries and Swapna Suresh had caused embarrassment not only to the CM or the ruling party but also to the people of Kerala. As per the chats, M Sivasankar, the then-principal secretary to the CM, assured Swapna, who was about to resign from her job at the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, that she would be assured a job at the NORKA, which is the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs. The chats also mention that Pinarayi’s additional private secretary CM Raveendran informed Sivasankar that Swapna met the CM.
According to the transcripts, Swapna met Pinarayi right before her resignation from the Consulate, and that Raveendran was shocked to hear about her exit. Earlier, photos of Swapna and Pinarayi clicked before the scam was revealed, were out at various points.
Also, the issue has spilled over into the Kerala Legislative Assembly. One MLA in the assembly ensures to hold a mirror to the CM. If there is anything that could provoke Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan more than the sight of black flags, it would be Congress’s Muvattupuzha MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan. In fact, at a recent session, Kuzhalnadan was at his provocative best. He moved an adjournment motion on the Wadakkanchery LIFE Mission issue and dragged the Chief Minister right to the middle of the bribery scandal. Not only did he place Pinarayi at the centre of the scandal but he also kept hurling direct questions at him. His posers were derived from the remand report of the Enforcement Directorate, which had reproduced certain WhatsApp chats the Chief Minister’s former principal secretary M Sivasankar had with some of the key actors involved in the scandal.
One, Kuzhalnadan wanted to know whether the Chief Minister had endorsed a letter that appointed Unitac as the contractor of the Wadakkanchery LIFE Mission project. Two, he wanted to know whether the Chief Minister, along with Sivasankar, had met with the UAE Consul General, and his then-secretary Swapna Suresh. “Do you have the courage to deny this,” Kuzhalnadan dared Pinarayi. The Chief Minister was quick to react and in quite a provoked fashion. “This is an absolute lie. There was no such meeting,” the Chief Minister said in rage. Kuzhalnadan responded with another dare, couched in the sly language of concern. “If this is the case, then you should approach the court. How can an agency (ED) be allowed to spread falsehoods against the Chief Minister? The UDF will be with you,” Kuzhalnadan said. This provoked the Chief Minister more. “I don’t need your advice on what I should do,” Pinarayi said. Stepping up the provocation, Kuzhalnadan said the Chief Minister now would have to deny more things. He flung his third poser, quoting from Sivasankar’s WhatsApp chat with Swapna Suresh. “Did you ask Sivasankar to get Swapna a plum posting in Space Park (under the IT Department)?”
Faced with tough questioning from the opposition, Minister for Law P Rajeeve intervened to ask whether Kuzhalnadan was willing to table the WhatsApp evidence of chats before the House. Kuzhalnadan was more than willing. “I am all for it. I will gladly table the ED remand report before the House,” he said. But Rajeeve said that he was asking about the WhatsApp chats and not the remand report. Kuzhalnadan replied that he read out the WhatsApp chats from the remand report. Now, Rajeeve argued that a document that was under the consideration of courts could not be mentioned in the House. He cited rule 52(7) of the Assembly Rules of Procedure to back his claim. By now, the ruling party members massed themselves right at the edge of the well of the House and shouted down Kuzhalnadan. Even though the ruling government tried to contain the situation it seems to be out spilling into the daily talking point. The people of Kerala are disgruntled by this recurring theme of corruption.
How the saga of corruption that is being unravelled in Kerala relates to each other is still a mystery but on close examination, we can find a common thread that binds them all. The common thread which connects them runs through Swapna Suresh and the secretaries of the Chief Minister, but the big question is about the role of the CM. Even though that mystery continues, as leader of a democratic state, he should explain what his role is in all these allegations.
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.