Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that those with vested interests were knowingly spreading false rumours to create a misunderstanding about the government.
After reading out the COVID-19 updates of the day — 2,540 new cases and 2,110 recoveries — Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condemned the attack on cabinet colleague KT Jaleel during which a car tried to block the Minister’s official vehicle in Kollam. Protesters across the state have been demanding the resignation of Minister Jaleel after he was called for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday. On Monday, after another day of protests, CM Pinarayi told the media that Jaleel had done no wrong and that the agencies were carrying out their normal procedure. The issue began several weeks ago when news of a consignment of the Islamic holy book Quran surfaced in connection with the notorious gold smuggling case. Minister Jaleel had received copies of the holy book from the United Arab Emirates Consulate. Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate and a key accused in the gold smuggling case, was in touch with the Minister for the consignment. The Minister had revealed the messages exchanged in connection with it. However, he was recently called for questioning by the ED after which many protests broke out across the state. “The questioning is in connection with the consignment of Qurans. It came because of a complaint sent to the investigative agency. It is the agency’s responsibility to probe such complaints and find out the truth,” CM Pinaryi said in response to questions. It’s never a crime to circulate religious books you get from the Consulate and Jaleel has only been doing what’s normal in these circumstances, the Chief Minister said. He accused ‘certain people’ of spreading rumours knowingly, only to create misunderstanding about the government. CM Pinarayi raised the allegations by some media on Minister EP Jayarajan’s wife Indira breaking quarantine to go to a bank and open a locker. While Indira had herself released a video earlier to explain she was not in quarantine and opening a locker to buy gifts for her grandchildren was no crime, CM Pinarayi went on to add that such rumours were spread consciously. Watch: EP Jayarajan's wife Indira explains she was not in quarantine “What is wrong in a retired manager going to the bank where she once worked and opening her locker? What was raised as a big issue was that she had a chain of one sovereign weighed there. How can you complain about that?” he asked. The Chief Minister then spoke of his own experience from nearly 25 years ago when similar ‘rumours’ had been fabricated. “All the wealth in this state is supposed to be mine and any big house would be called Pinarayi Vijayan’s. In those days, a certain person alleged that someone had given me two crore rupees for a favour that I could give as Electricity Minister. You have to understand this was before the elections had even taken place. It was 1996 and I was contesting the elections. But the elections were not over, we had not yet won and I have not yet become an MLA, forget Minister. But such a complaint was made to the Central Bureau of Investigation. They called me for the probe and said we know it’s a lie, but we need to do it,” said the CM. Those with vested interests would do such things to mislead agencies but the media should not be part of it, CM Pinarayi said. Also read: Amidst allegations against EP Jayarajan’s son, legal notice sent to media house
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