The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has resolved to tackle “the plot to vilify” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan head-on.
After chairing a meeting of the party's State secretariat, CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the party would muster the people to counter the conspiracy.
Mr. Balakrishnan said the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had hatched the plot to destabilise the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
They had resurrected old lies and used the made-up stories as a pretext for unleashing widespread violence to mar Kerala's development prospects.
“The people will not allow such conspirators to hold the government to ransom or threaten the State with anarchy,” he said.
Flays Swapna
Mr. Balakrishnan trivialised diplomatic channel gold smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh’s accusations and blamed the “politically partisan” sections of the media for magnifying the falsehoods to spite the government.
Neither he nor Mr. Vijayan had used any religious organisation to stash away ill-gotten wealth in the U.S. Moreover, Swapna’s statements were often contradictory.
“She first said neither the Chief Minister nor his office was involved in the racket. She also accused the Central agencies of coercing her to implicate Mr. Vijayan in the offence. Now, she has flip-flopped on her earlier averments at some entity’s behest,” he said.
Mr. Balakrishnan said multiple investigations by an array of Central agencies had found no wrongdoing on the part of the previous LDF administration.
Gold smuggling case
The Central government had hobbled the probe at the very outset by denying contraband gold was smuggled into the country via the UAE consulate's diplomatic channel, he said.
The investigation has ended in a blind alley. The agencies merely netted a few lower-rung enablers. They failed to identify the beneficiaries. The probe petered out after agencies learned the enquiry could lead to the doorstep of some BJP leaders, he added.
Mr. Balakrishnan said the Congress and BJP had used cherry-picked leaks from the agencies to slander the previous government. “First the Opposition said gold came in the Koran and dates. Now, they say it came inside a biriyani vessel,” he said.
He said the Congress leaned on the BJP and Central agencies to slander the LDF. However, the party was curiously silent about the Enforcement Directorate’s notice to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. It had turned a blind eye to BJP’s penchant to use Central agencies against political opponents.
