By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Kerala's ruling Communist Party of India- Marxist's (CPI-M) two-day meet, which began Saturday, is likely to be a stormy affair with allegations of two corruption scandals having surfaced against Deshabhimani, the party's mouthpiece.
Deshabhimani has been accused of accepting Rs.20 million in the form of a bond from the family members of S. Martin, a leading lottery agent, for development activities of the newspaper. The issue was brought to light by leading vernacular daily Mathrubhumi and was then taken up by the opposition.
The party organ was in the eye of another corruption case last week when K. Venugopal – a senior official at Deshabhimani – was expelled from the CPI-M following allegations that he had taken a bribe of Rs.10 million from a private financial institution.
The Congress has now demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the charges.
"We demand that Prakash Karat, who is here to take part in the party meeting, write to the Centre demanding a CBI probe into these corruption charges," state Congress president Ramesh Chennithala told reporters here Saturday.
What has added to the controversy is that E.P Jayarajan, general manager of Deshabhimani, has given two contradictory statements on the Rs.20 million taken from Martin, Kerala's uncrowned lottery king.
In a written rejoinder to Mathrubhumi's report, he said the money was collected through the sale of bonds. But a day later, he said the money collected was an advance payment for advertisements.
"(Chief Minister) Achuthanandan's silence is a shame because as leader of opposition (2001-2006), he had accused our government on going soft on collecting arrears from the lottery mafia. People of Kerala would like to hear what Achuthanandan has to say on these corruption issues," said Chennithala.
He said that the corruption cases could also be attributed to the ongoing feud within the CPI-M Kerala unit – between Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and state-unit secretary Pinnarayi Vijayan.
Venugopal, who was expelled from the party, is said to be a close associate of Vijayan.