Swapna's 164 statement out, it says Kerala CM sought favour from Sharjah ruler for daughter Veena

Certain portions of the sworn statement given by Swapna Suresh, one of the prime accused in the gold smuggling scandal, are now out. The leaked contents allege serious misuse of power and elaborate on the role of the chief minister and his family in the gold smuggling case.

A serious allegation is that the Chief Minister had sought the assistance of Sharjah ruler, Sultan Bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, for his daughter Veena to begin an IT company in Sharjah. Swapna alleged that the favour was sought during the Sharjah sovereign's visit to Kerala in September 2017.

It is alleged that the proposal was put forward during a closed-door interaction the Chief Minister had held with the Sharjah ruler at the Chief Minister's official residence, Cliff House. Top IAS officers in the Chief Minister's office, Nalini Netto and M Sivasankar were also present during the occasion.

Swapna has alleged that the Chief Minister's wife, Kamala Vijayan, also had talked to the Sharjah ruler's wife about her daughter opening an IT company in Sharjah. It is said that the Sharjah ruler was against the proposal, and therefore did not bear fruit.

Swapna also says that these charges were already revealed to the central investigating agencies in 2021 itself.

Swapna says that the proof of her charge that gold was smuggled into the Chief Minister's official residence in 'heavy' biriyani vessels from the UAE Consulate General's house was already with the National Investigating Agency (NIA). She said the NIA was already in possession of her chats with Sivasankar related to the biriyani vessels.

This is not the first time that the Chief Minister's daughter was drawn into political controversies.

In April 2020, right after the Sprinklr controversy erupted in the wake of the COVID outbreak, the late Congress MLA P T Thomas had alleged that Veena Vijayan's Exalogic Solutions Pvt Ltd. had links with the US-based Sprinklr. Thomas had alleged that Exalogic's website had gone down ever since the link was established.

 

Similar allegations of Pinarayi Vijayan's outreach for his daughter was made in 2011 by Marxist ideologue Berlin Kunhanandan. Then Berlin was seen as a close associate of V S Achuthanandan but later, as recently as 2021, Berlin had expressed desire to apologise to Pinarayi.

 

In 2011, in an article he wrote for a leading vernacular, Berlin said that Pinarayi Vijayan had asked him to contact M Krishnan Nair, the founder of Leela hotels and a Kannur native, and arrange an engineering seat for his daughter Veena as she did not have the adequate marks to earn a seat in the merit quota.

Berlin had then said this deeply disappointed him as Pinarayi sought an admission for his daughter in a self-financing college when the SFI was engaged in street protests against the UDF government's self-financing policy.