As Kerala CPM now faces sex scandal allegations, Cong questions ‘silence’, ‘double standards’

Last week, the key accused in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, alleged that former finance minister Thomas Isaac, former temple affairs minister Kadakampally Surendran, and former Assembly speaker P Sreeramakrishnan, all of the CPI(M), had sought sexual favours from her when they were in office, during the previous LDF regime between 2016 and 2021.

Suresh, who had served as executive secretary at the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, raised the fresh allegations as a sequel to the publication of her autobiography, “Chathiyude padmavyuhathil (Padmavyuha of betrayal)”. Of the three leaders, only Kadakampally is now a legislator, while Sreeramakrishnan is the vice-chairman of Norka Roots, the state department for affairs of expatriates, and Isaac is a central committee member of the CPI(M).

Suresh alleged that each one of them had sought sexual favours from her. When the leaders accused her of acting at the BJP’s behest, she dared them to sue her and threatened to reveal evidence against them.

Defending the party’s silence on her allegations, CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan said Suresh does not have any credibility. “She has been raising such allegations, all of which are baseless. We have decided not to respond to her latest claims,’’ he said.

Accusing the CPI(M) of double standards, Congress legislator and Opposition leader V D Satheesan said that in the solar case, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had directly obtained a complaint from the woman accused in the scandal in order to set up a probe against Congress leaders, including former CM Oommen Chandy, on the allegation that they had sexually exploited her.

“Vijayan should explain how the same party and government that had found the allegations raised by Saritha Nair, the accused in the solar scandal, credible, is now finding the words of (gold smuggling accused) Swapna not believable. Using Nair, the CPI(M) had tried to defame Chandy and other Congress leaders. Now, Suresh has deposed before a magistrate. The Congress challenges the CM and his party to take legal action on her allegations against the CPI(M) leaders. If her allegations are baseless, the CPI(M) should show the courage to take legal action against her,’’ said Satheesan.

While Nair had alleged that Chandy, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and three other Congress leaders had sexually exploited her, a state crime branch probe in 2017 had not found anything. Subsequently, in January 2021, Nair had handed over a complaint to Vijayan who, in turn, had referred it to the CBI. The 2017 complaint had included the name of Jose K Mani, a Kerala Congress (M) leader. But when she approached Vijayan with a fresh complaint in 2021, the name of Mani, who had by then moved to the ruling LDF, was missing. BJP national president A P Abdullakutty’s name also figured in both the complaints.

Like the CPI(M) leaders now, Congress leaders, including Venugopal, had never bothered to sue Nair. However, octogenarian Chandy had challenged it, moving the High Court to quash the case against him. He also sued CPI(M) veteran V S Achuthanandan in the case. Recently, the court ordered Achuthanandan to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh to Chandy.

Although the CPI(M) is not giving much credibility to Suresh’s latest revelations, the party has been using an audio clip, purportedly attributed to her, in a bid to show that central agencies were trying to drag Vijayan’s name into the gold smuggling scandal.

In 2020, while Suresh was in judicial custody, an audio clip had emerged, in which she was allegedly heard saying she would be allowed to become an approver if she confessed that she had gone to the UAE with M. Sivasankar — former principal secretary to CM Vijayan and an accused in the case — to carry out financial negotiations on behalf of the CM. A probe by Central agencies into the audio clip had then revealed that the state police had obtained it to show that she was under pressure to confess against the CM.

The CPI(M) had then given much credibility to this audio clip, alleging that the central agencies were trying to target Vijayan.