Kerala Leader of Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan broke his silence on Saturday regarding the Enforcement Directorate's move to seek registration of a corruption case against him, his daughter Veena Vijayan and son-in-law Mohammed Riyas, describing the action as the latest episode in a decade-long onslaught against the CPI-M.
He challenged the ED's narrative that money received by Exalogic from CMRL was a gratification for favours allegedly extended during his tenure as Chief Minister, asking which of the two conflicting claims - that CMRL suffered losses or received undue benefits - could be true, and said he had done nothing to benefit CMRL while in office, urging investigators to produce evidence of any such favour.
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Vijayan recalled that a 2024 complaint filed by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan over the CMRL-Exalogic issue had been found without merit and claimed that the Supreme Court too had given the issue a clean chit; he also noted that despite repeated allegations - including those linked to the 2016 floods and a gold smuggling case - the LDF returned to power in 2021 for a consecutive term, but argued that after the UDF came to power in 2026 the ED joined what he described as a coordinated campaign against the Left, and denied reports that Veena had admitted wrongdoing before the agency.
He asserted that central agencies are being used to haunt political adversaries and alleged that the RSS agenda was to finish off the CPI-M, questioned Congress leaders in Kerala about similar criticism voiced by Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, warned that no one should assume they are beyond the ED's reach, said he would fight the matter legally and politically, and explained that his press conference was postponed due to voice problems and is taking place on the eve of the extended CPI-M State Committee meeting, adding a new political dimension to the ongoing probe.
