The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] on Friday rallied to defend Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeted his daughter and IT entrepreneur T. Veena for allegedly using her software firm as a front for laundering “political pay-offs” from a Kochi-based mining firm during the 2017-2021 period.
Party State secretary M.V. Govindan said the media and the Opposition had yet again brewed a toxic stew of conspiracy theories and misinformation to demonise and dehumanise Mr. Vijayan and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections by wilfully casting his daughter’s legitimate transactions with the mining firm in a suspicious light.
He said the BJP subverted Central regulators, including an income tax (I-T) interim settlement board, to cast aspersions on the retainer fee received by Ms. Veena’s IT consultancy for maintaining the mining firm’s software.
Mr. Govindan said the I-T forum, possibly with a political motive, disallowed the mining firm from claiming a tax respite on the service fee. In stark contrast, the forum allowed the mining firm to claim tax relief on sizeable off-the-book payments made to United Democratic Front (UDF) leaders, journalists, and religious places of worship.
The I-T disputes adjudication board also strangely concluded sans any proof that the money paid by the company under the head “PV” was pay-offs made to Mr. Vijayan.
Mr. Govindan said the Chief Minister outrightly denied the accusation. In contrast, he said the UDF leaders sheepishly admitted they had accepted political donations from the mining firm.
“The I-T tribunal allowed the company to portray such receipt-less payments as genuine expenditures to claim a tax reprieve. However, the I-T board strangely demurred when the mining firm sought a tax relief on the legitimate retainer fee paid via a legal banking channel to Ms. Veena, though she had paid GST and allied taxes on her company’s income,” Mr Govindan said.
He said the bid to vilify Mr. Vijayan by targeting Ms. Veena was the latest instance of the BJP subverting Central agencies to target political opponents and dissenters to gain a propaganda advantage in the Lok Sabha poll campaign.
“For one, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) flipped the first accused in the Karuvannur bank scam to the prosecution’s side and leaked cherry-picked portions of the suspect’s depositions to vilify the CPI(M). The ED had reached out to the same political playbook in the gold smuggling case. The CPI(M) had faced such vicious slander campaigns, and the party remained undeterred,” Mr. Govindan said.
