The Finance department is reportedly moving to verify the accusations of IGST evasion by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter T. Veena, even as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP ) tapped into the contentious imputations to supercharge their campaign engines for the bypoll in the Puthuppally Assembly constituency, scheduled for September 5.
A much-publicised petition for a probe from Congress leader Mathew Kuzhalnadan, MLA, to Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal will likely set the default procedure in motion.
A Kochi-based mining company had engaged Veena on a retainer as a consultant and IT services provider during the 2016-20 period. A political scandal erupted when a statutory IT disputes settlement forum in New Delhi deemed the mining company could not claim an input tax credit for the remittances to Veena on the premise that her IT firm had rendered no discernible service to the client company.
