Rahul can retain Wayanad, albeit with a reduced margin
The CPI has fielded its senior leader, Annie Raja, against Rahul Gandhi while the BJP’s Kerala unit chief, K Surendran, is also in the fray thus making it a three-way battle
An hour after the news surfaced on Friday that the Kerala Police team probing an alleged Rs 3.5 crore hawala transaction, in which the state BJP president K. Surendran was questioned, has given a clean chit to the BJP, veteran Congress legislator Ramesh Chennithala said that this was the outcome of a deal struck between the ruling CPI-M and the BJP.
A former Leader of Opposition, Chennithala informed the media that there were doubts being voiced about the probe for quite some time. It was being feared that the probe could be a cover-up to give a clean chit to the BJP.
“The fact that not a single BJP leader’s name figures in the chargesheet clearly shows that there is a nexus between the two parties,” Chennithala said. “This was evident during the April 6 Assembly elections,” he added.
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On Wednesday, Surendran was questioned for 90 minutes and let off, and so were more than a dozen top- and middle-level leaders of the BJP in Thrissur district.
The BJP’s Kerala unit was caught on the back foot when a complaint was filed with the Thrissur rural police that a sum of Rs 25 lakh, being carried by the complainant in his vehicle to pay as advance in a land transaction, had been stolen from him on the Thrissur-Kodakara highway in April.
The police complaint coincided with reports that tribal leader C.K. Janu’s party, JRP, received Rs 10 lakh from Surendran for returning to the BJP-led NDA.
The revelation by JRP treasurer Praseeda Azhikode was quickly denied by Surendran and Janu, who threatened to take legal action against his own party functionary.
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