Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar has decided not to attend the dinner hosted by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at Cliff House on Sunday.

The Chief Minister and his wife had invited the Governor to the dinner by reaching the Raj Bhavan. However, the Raj Bhavan informed the Chief Minister last week that the Governor would not be attending the dinner.

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Apart from Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar, the Chief Minister had invited Goa Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai and West Bengal Governor C V Anandabose, both Keralites, to the banquet. They too declined the invitation.

It is learnt that the Governors declined the invitation based on the assessment that participating in the dinner hosted by Chief Minister Vijayan at this point of time would send the wrong message. The governors feel that, given the controversy surrounding the Chief Minister’s daughter, Veena Vijayan, in the monthly pay–off case, accepting such an invitation would send the wrong messages.

It is reported that the governors assessed that attending the dinner party at a time when the monthly payment case involving the Chief Minister’s daughter Veena has reached a critical stage would lead to new interpretations. It was Kerala Governor Arlekar who first informed the Chief Minister that he would have difficulty attending the dinner.

Earlier, the breakfast meeting hosted by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Delhi has triggered a row with the opposition parties, including the BJP, trying to link it with the ongoing probe against Vijayan’s daughter by Serious Fraud Investigation Office(SFIO), an agency under the ministry of Corporate Affairs which is headed by Sitharaman.

While RSP MP N K Premachandran raised suspicions over the intention of the meeting hosted by Vijayan, Congress senior leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the mystery over the meeting was deepening as Vijayan was not disclosing the details.

Premachandran said that it was quite natural to have doubts over the intention of the unusual breakfast meeting hosted by Vijayan for the Union Finance Minister, as a probe by SIFO against Vijayan’s daughter was learnt to be in the final stage.

BJP leader and former state Vigilance director Jacob Thomas stated that it was unfair on the part of the Chief Minister to host a breakfast meeting for the Union Finance Minister at a time when an agency under the latter was carrying out a probe against Vijayan’s daughter in connection with the payments to the tune of Rs 1.72 crore she received from Kochi-based Cochin Minerals and Rutiles Limited(CMRL).