In what could turn out to be a major political embarrassment for the CPM, Unitac Builders MD Santosh Eapen swallowed his charge, stated in his writ petition in the High Court, that one of the iPhones his company had sponsored for a UAE Consulate programme in 2019 was gifted to opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala.

On Monday, in a new statement given to the Vigilance team probing the Wadakkancherry Life Mission project, Eapen said he had no idea who had received the five iPhones his company had purchased and handed over to Swapna Suresh, then an official at the UAE Consulate.

The opposition leader on Monday had sent the Unitac MD a legal notice saying he would go ahead with defamation proceedings if he did not withdraw the statement and apologise. The initial response of the Unitac MD's legal team was that they would fight Chennthala in court.

Earlier, latching on to Eapen's High Court statement, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said Chennithala had no moral right to accuse higher education minister K T Jaleel of violating protocol when he himself had violated norms by attending a raffle organised by a foreign entity and accepted gifts.

Chennithala said he had taken part in the raffle organised by the UAE Consulate on December 2, 2019, as part of the UAE Raising Day celebrations but insisted that he had not accepted any gifts. "They greeted me with a shawl which I immediately handed back," Chennithala said.

However, he said his aide had received a watch as part of the lucky draw. Further, Chennithala said one of the iPhones was received A P Rajeevan, the state assistant protocol officer and one of Kodiyeri's personal staff while he was home minister.

The opposition leader also wanted to know how the assistant protocol officer himself could be present at the event if here was violation of protocol.

Chennithala had also written to the State Police Chief asking him to trace the mobile phones that were distributed at the UAE Consulate function in 2019. He also passed on the IMEI numbers of all the phones that Unitac had purchased at Swapna Suresh's request.

The police, however, declined the request saying it would be an encroachment into privacy.