Senior BJP leader in Kerala and former Mizoram governor Kummanam Rajasekharan alleged that the Left Front government had tried to implicate him in a cheating case to divert attention from the arrest of the Kerala Chief Minister's former principal secretary M Sivasankar by the Enforcement Directorate.
Rajasekharan alleged that the government planned to arrest him on the day Sivasankar was held.
A cheating case was registered against Rajasekharan, along with eight others, in Kerala's Pathanamthitta on Oct. 22 based on a complaint of a local person that the accused had accepted lakhs of rupees and cheated many people by offering partnerships in a paper and cotton-based banner manufacturing unit in Palakkad district in Kerala.
Rajasekharan was arraigned as the fifth accused in the case registered by the Aranmula police. His close confidant and personal staffer Praveen was the first accused in the case. The complainant C R Harikrishnan later withdrew the complaint following an out-of-court settlement.
Rajasekharan said that the case against him was a political ploy to counter the Enforcement Directorate's arrest of Sivasankar. He said that the police did not make any enquiries or take his statement before arraigning him in the case. Rajasekharan reiterated that he had no involvement in the alleged cheating incident.
Published 10 November 2020, 16:23 IST