Thiruvananthapuram: In the second blow for the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) in Kerala after the Lok Sabha polls debacle, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) provisionally attached a landed property of its local committee in Thrissur and at least eight bank accounts connected to the controversial Karuvannur Bank controlled by the party.
The CPI-M sharply reacted to the development with the party’s state general secretary MV Govindan telling the media in Delhi on Saturday that the ED move was a central government ploy to silence the opposition.
During his Lok Sabha election campaign in the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised swift action against the bank which had swindled money belonging to poor women and farmers.
ED sources said the agency was carrying out the PMLA (The Prevention of Money Laundering Act) investigation in the case by considering the CPI-M as a respondent. This is the third attachment of assets in the case, and the latest attachment was worth Rs 29 crore.
The attached property is in the name of party district secretary MM Varghese who has now been made a respondent. The attached bank accounts, with over Rs 60 lakh in them, include two fixed deposit accounts of the district committee, a savings bank account of an area committee, and five other accounts suspected to be linked to CPI-M, they said.
Sources said the ED investigation of the money trail in the Karuvannur case had led it to various bank accounts belonging to the CPI-M. The agency has also alleged that the party maintained various bogus accounts in Karuvannur Bank.
ED had earlier attached assets of a bank commission agent, worth Rs 30.70 crore, in December 2022. Later in October 2023, it attached assets of various individuals, worth Rs 57.75 crore, as proceeds of crime.
Reacting to the development, former Union Minister V Muraleedharan said the ED had discovered nearly 25 bank accounts under the names of the district and area committees of the CPI-M.
The case revolves around allegations that officials of the bank, in collusion with others, diverted depositors’ funds through fraudulent loans. Numerous fictitious loans were reportedly sanctioned multiple times. The ED had earlier interrogated MM Varghese, former Minister AC Moideen, and party leaders PK. Biju and MK Kannan.
*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
