The CPI(M) claimed that Suresh has very little credibility, the Congress demanded to file a lawsuit in response to her claims against the CPI(M) leaders
The opposition is putting pressure on the CPI(M), which is now in power in Kerala, for its odd hesitation in retaliating, politically and legally, to claims of sexual exploitation made against three top party leaders by a suspect in a 2020 gold smuggling case.
The CPI(M) has been able to deflect focus from the claims with the aid of the most recent dispute between Governor Arif Mohammed Khan and the state administration regarding vice-chancellors, but its silence is resonating loudly.
The action contrasts sharply with how the CPI(M) behaved when a suspect in the solar crisis case made similar accusations against a number of Congress officials.
The main suspect in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, claimed last week that three CPI(M) officials—former Assembly speaker P Sreeramakrishnan, former temple affairs minister Kadakampally Surendran, and former finance minister Thomas Isaac—had asked for sexual services from her while they were in office between 2016 and 2021.
Recent allegations made by Swapna Suresh
Following the release of her autobiography, “Chathiyude padmavyuhathil (Padmavyuha of betrayal),” Suresh, who had previously worked as executive secretary at the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, brought up the new accusations. The lone legislator among the three leaders is Kadakampally, while Sreeramakrishnan serves as vice-chairman of Norka Roots, the state department for expatriate affairs, and Isaac is a CPI central committee member (M).
Each of them, according to Suresh, allegedly asked for sexual favors from her. She dared the leaders to sue her and threatened to release evidence against them when they claimed she was working at the BJP’s direction.
Suresh has very little credibility, according to CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan, who defended the party’s decision to remain silent about her accusations. “These are all unfounded charges that she has been making. We have opted not to address her most recent assertions,” he stated.
Congress lawmaker and leader of the opposition V D Satheesan accused the CPI(M) of applying double standards, claiming that in the solar case, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had directly received a complaint from the woman accused in the scandal in order to launch an investigation into Congress leaders, including former CM Oommen Chandy, on the allegation that they had sexually exploited her.
The Congress wants legal action in this case
Vijayan should explain why the same party and administration that thought the claims made by Saritha Nair, the accused in the solar affair, were trustworthy are now considering Swapna’s (the alleged perpetrator of gold smuggling) comments to be untrue. The CPI(M) attempted to discredit Chandy and other leaders of the Congress by using Nair. Suresh has been sworn in front of a magistrate. The Congress demands that the CM and his party file a lawsuit in response to her claims against the CPI(M) leaders. The CPI(M) should have the guts to sue her, if her accusations are unfounded, according to Satheesan.
A state crime branch investigation in 2017 uncovered nothing, despite Nair’s allegations that Chandy, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, and three other Congress leaders had sexually exploited her. Nair later submitted a complaint to Vijayan in January 2021, who then forwarded it to the CBI.
A Kerala Congress (M) leader named Jose K. Mani was mentioned in the 2017 complaint. However, Mani’s name was gone when she went to Vijayan with a new complaint in 2021, since she had joined the ruling LDF by that point. Both complaints contained references to A P Abdullakutty, national head of the BJP.
Like the CPI(M) leaders of today, Venugopal and other top Congress officials never bothered to file a lawsuit against Nair. However, 80-year-old Chandy had contested it and asked the High Court to throw out the charges against him. In the lawsuit, he also sued veteran CPI(M) member V S Achuthanandan. Achuthanandan was recently directed by the court to give Chandy a Rs. 10 lakh compensation.
Even though the CPI(M) does not believe Suresh’s most recent claims, the party has been utilising an audio recording that is allegedly hers to demonstrate that the government was attempting to implicate Vijayan in the gold smuggling case.
An audio clip of Suresh and M. Sivasankar goes viral
A clip of an alleged conversation between Suresh and M. Sivasankar, a former principal secretary to CM Vijayan and an accused party in the case, in which they were heard discussing going to the UAE to conduct financial negotiations on the CM’s behalf, surfaced in 2020 while Suresh was in judicial custody.
In the clip, she is heard allegedly promising to confess and receive permission to be appointed as an approver, if she does. The state police had obtained the audio clip, according to an investigation into it by central authorities, to demonstrate that she was being forced to confess against the CM.
When claiming that the government was attempting to attack Vijayan, the CPI(M) gave this audio tape a lot of credence.
