The Kerala Police on Thursday booked Congress’ Sulthan Bathery MLA, I C Balakrishnan, who with three others – Wayanad district Congress president N D Appachan, former Wayanad district Congress president, late P V Balachandran and former district treasurer K K Gopinathan – for abetting the suicides of the party’s former Wayanad district treasurer N M Vijayan and his son Jijesh.
With the move, the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala is set to step up its attacks over the alleged suicides of a Wayanad district Congress office-bearer and his son, which is being linked to an alleged 2019 cash-for-jobs scam in cooperative banks and is also planning large-scale agitations demanding Balakrishnan’s resignation.
“The Congress leadership has pushed Vijayan and son to suicide. “It is a case of murder. Congress leaders V D Satheesan and K Sudhakaran had insulted the family. Vijayan took the extreme step to ensure that the party was not hurt in any manner,” CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan told the media.
The twin suicides may also emerge as a key issue for the LDF to counter the Congress’ campaign against the Pinarayi Vijayan government over the recent suicide of Additional District Magistrate Kannur Naveen Babu after he was allegedly insulted by CPI(M) leader and district panchayat president P P Divya, who was later forced to step down. She was subsequently arrested and was in judicial custody for nearly two weeks.
Vijayan and Jijesh died at a Kozhikode hospital on December 27 last year, days after they consumed poison. A letter, purportedly written by Vijayan and addressed to the party and his eldest son Vijesh, said he had accepted bribes from people in return for jobs in Congress-controlled cooperative banks. Vijayan also said in the letter that he had collected Rs 85 lakh, a significant chunk of which he claimed was distributed among Congress leaders, including Balakrishanan and Appachan. The deceased leader in the letter also claimed that he had accepted a sum of Rs 18 lakh for Appachan and Rs 7 lakh for Balakrishnan.
The letter, released by Vijayan’s family on Tuesday, also claimed that Vijayan had taken a loan of Rs 32 lakh on behalf of the Congress to unseat the BJP from the Sulthan Bathery cooperative bank administration, but defaulted on it. Hence, the loan had become a personal debt of Rs 66 lakh for Vijayan, against which he had pledged his property, the letter claimed.
On Tuesday, Vijayan’s eldest son told the media that he had shared his father’s letter with the top Congress leadership, including Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and state leaders. “The Congress is trying to depict that my father and brother took the extreme step due to family issues. This prompted us to release the letter. Had we not reacted, they would blame us for the suicides… My father incurred a debt for the party but no party leader came forward to help us,” he said in Wayanad.
Both Balakrishnan and Appachan said they were not aware of the letter. “I have not seen it and never knew Vijayan was under financial distress. Let the party look into the contents of the letter,” the Sulthan Bathery MLA said.
Since the deaths, the Congress is in damage control mode with the state unit constituting a committee led by senior leader Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, who met the victims’ family on Wednesday and promised to solve the issue.
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