Kerala CPI-M apprehends ED notice to Thomas Isaac bid to target Vijayan

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IANS | 06 Aug, 2022
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has served two notices to former Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac and the buzz on Saturday was that he is not going to appear and seek legal recourse as the ruling CPI-M fears that this could be a short cut to target Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Vijayan is already embroiled in controversy after gold smuggling case prime accused Swapna Suresh accused him, his wife and daughter of being involved in smuggling gold and currency and both the ED and the CBI have already taken statements from her.

Apart from that, Vijayan and the CPI-M are a bit of a bind after hearing the news that the Supreme Court might post the SNC Lavalin case on August 22. The case relates to the agreement which Vijayan, as the state Power Minister, inked in 1997 and later it was found out that the deal caused a loss of Rs 266 crore to the state exchequer.

He was named as an accused in the case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Even though a CBI special court here exonerated Vijayan in 2013, the then Congress-led state government had approached the high court but it too gave relief to Vijayan.

However, the CBI approached the apex court but this petition has been postponed numerous times in the past few years.

And what has now raised eyebrows has been a few statements by socio-political activist and Hindu leader Pratheesh Viswanath, who is considered close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, including that Vijayan should not think that the gold smuggling case and the Lavalin case is over.

"The day when the law catches up with you, the cheated people in the state and your own party will realise, what you did, as the empire that you built was using the blood of your comrades and the ones who were cheated were the real comrades," he wrote.