The Communist Party of India (CPI) has expelled former Kandala Service Cooperative Bank president N. Bhasurangan from the party’s primary membership after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) detained him for questioning on lending and deposit fraud-related money-laundering charges.
Mangode Radhakrishnan, CPI district secretary, Thiruvananthapuram, told reporters on November 9, 2023 that the party had earlier demoted Mr. Bhasurangan from its district executive to mandalam committee after a Cooperative department audit found large-scale fraud that caused the bank’s assets to depreciate by ₹101 crore during the 2015-2021 period.
The CPI’s disciplinary action against the senior leader in the district stood in stark contrast to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] that has legally and politically thrown a wall around party apparatchiks arrested by the ED in connection with the comparable Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank scam in Thrissur.
