The Chief Minister and the Cooperation Minister are fooling the public by claiming that none of those who had deposited money at the defrauded Karuvannur Cooperative Bank will lose even a single rupee, Opposition Leader V.D. Satheesan has said.
The Cooperation Minister claimed that those with deposits less than ₹50,000 would be returned the full amount and that those up to a lakh in deposit would be given ₹50,000 at least, for the time being.
At the same time, neither the Cooperation Minister nor the Chief Minister clarified how they were going to return the hard-earned lakhs that many had deposited in the bank as a safe investment, Mr. Satheesan said.
The Cooperation Minister was speaking as though everything was normal at the Karuvannur bank, he said. The government and the CPI(M) had now turned out to be the biggest protectors of those who defrauded thousands of their hard-earned savings. At Karuvannur alone, at least ₹300 crore had been siphoned off and in the other cooperative banks in Thrissur, frauds worth at least ₹500 crore had taken place. The government should do everything to give back depositors the life savings that they had lost, Mr. Satheesan emphasised.
He pointed out that the allegation of former MLA Anil Akkara that the Karuvannur bank fraud was linked with the Kodakara hawala money case was very serious. Mr. Akkara had alleged that the discussion between the Chief Minister and the CPI(M) State committee member and State vice president of Kerala Bank M.K. Kannan about the compromise formula that the Crime Branch would end all investigation into the Kodakara hawala money case, was quite serious.
The CPI(M)-BJP link behind the frauds surrounding the cooperative banks in Thrissur and money laundering allegations should be clearly investigated, Mr. Satheesan demanded.
Just as the Lavalin, gold smuggling and Life Mission cases were upstaged, in Karuvannur bank fraud also, the Congress party was apprehensive that the CPI(M) would arrive at a compromise with the BJP, Mr. Satheesan said in a statement here.
