Congress raises queries to Kerala CM about ED probe into daughter's IT firm

Kochi, Feb 20 (PTI): In a poser to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the opposition Congress on Tuesday expressed doubts if the stalling of the Enforcement Directorate probe against his daughter's now-defunct IT firm was due to an understanding between the CPI(M) and the BJP.

The ED had launched an investigation into the operations of Vijayan's daughter, T Veena's IT company Exalogic Solutions in 2021 before the last Assembly polls, Leader of Opposition (LoP) V D Satheesan said, while addressing a press conference here.

He sought to know how the probe by a central agency was covered up in these three years.

Satheesan alleged that some BJP leaders in the state had played middlemen between Vijayan and the union government in this matter.

Neither the Chief Minister's Office nor the BJP has reacted to Satheesan's allegations.

Quoting a recent judgement by the Karnataka High Court, he said the Registrar of Companies (ROC) had issued a notice to Exalogic on January 29, 2021 after they were given information by the ED about financial transactions between Veena's firm and the Kochi-based private minerals company CMRL.

"Is the Chief Minister ready to clarify which agencies are investigating the transactions and operations of his daughter's company now," the LoP asked.

He also asked Vijayan to clarify if the state government had given any favours to companies which had financial transactions with Exalogic.

"Can you (CM) clarify whether the state government has given any favour including tax exemption to the institutions that had paid money on a monthly basis to Exalogic," Satheesan asked.

The LoP said that all these questions were based on reports of investigating agencies and the recent judgement of the Karnataka High Court and urged the CM to give a reply.

The Congress party posed a set of questions to Vijayan two days after it demanded his resignation over an investigation by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) into financial transactions involving Exalogic.

Recently, the Karnataka High Court had dismissed a petition filed by Exalogic against the SFIO probe in its affairs. The Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs had asked the SFIO to investigate the company.

Earlier this month, the Kerala High Court too had declined to stay the SFIO probe into the state-run KSIDC, Exalogic and Kochi-based minerals company CMRL. PTI