Kerala CM's daughter could come under ED scanner too

Thiruvanathapuram: In the wake of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office's (SFIO) finding that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter received Rs. 2.70 crore from a controversial mining firm, the Enforcement Directorate is also learnt to be acting against her.

The ED is learnt to have collected details from the SFIO with regard to the financial transactions of the mining firm Cochin Minerals and Rutiles Limited (CMRL) and its key promoter Sasidharan Kartha with the Chief Minister's daughter Veena T and her Bengaluru-based IT firm Exalogic Solutions.

Already petitions were pending before the ED seeking actions on the allegations against Veena, who is also the wife of state public works minister Muhammed Riyas. ED had also carried out preliminary inquiries.

The CPi(M) leadership is strongly defending the allegations by maintaining that it was part of misuse of central agencies against leaders of opposition parties by the BJP government at the centre.

CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby said that since the attempts of central agencies to raise baseless allegations against the Chief Minister failed, they were not targeting his daughter. There was no proof for any undue favours extended by the left-front government or the Chief Minister to the mining firm, he said.

SFIO recently filed the inquiry report for prosecuting Veena, among several others, in connection with the shady deals that allegedly took place under the pretext of IT services. CMRL was facing allegations of smuggling mineral rich sand from the Kollam - Alappuzha coastal areas of Kerala. Hence the huge payments made by the firm to the Chief Ministers' daughter's firm became more suspicious.

BJP leader Shaun George told a section of media that since corruption was involved a CBI probe was also required into the shady deals.