THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With local body elections around the corner, corruption allegations in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation are taking a new turn with CPM claiming that opposition leaders have been involved in a massive scam. CPM district secretary, V Joy, who pointed out that a total of Rs 1.47 crore has been scammed from the money allocated for women entrepreneurs from the SC, ST, BPL communities, said that the role of UDF and BJP councillors must be investigated in the issue.
The new turn in the issue started when the vigilance arrested 14 persons on Wednesday, for the financial fraud associated with the provision of subsidy loans for women entrepreneurs from the SC, ST and BPL communities.
The corporation has allocated Rs 1.26 crore under this scheme in 2020-21 for the SC/ST communities, and Rs 1.14 crore in 2021-22 for the BPL group. Joy, who is also the Attingal MLA, alleged that forged caste certificates were used for the financial fraud, and a racket is working behind this widespread corruption.
Among the arrested people was the manager of the UDF-governed Pattom Cooperative Service Bank.
“Lakhs of rupees had been debited to various accounts, including that of the daughter of a Congress leader, through this officer,” alleged the leader. He also cited the allegations of financial fraud by BJP councillors P V Manju (Punnakkamugal) and Asha Nath (Pappanamcode), and said, “It is evident that BJP and Congress are behind these corruptions.”
However, BJP councillor P V Manju refuted the allegations against her. “I have proper evidence to prove myself innocent,” she said. Thirumala councillor K Anilkumar responded that no such corruption has taken place from the side of the opposition parties.
“The investigation and arrests were done by the state vigilance, and we can imagine how they will take the case,” he said, adding that it was under the BJP pressure that the Mayor filed a case against these allegations in the first place.
BJP urges probe in all cases
Claiming that the speedy move of CPM against the Scheduled Castes fund fraud allegations is due to the fear of central agencies getting involved, BJP state secretary V V Rajesh urged that all cases related to the issue must be investigated. Alleging that CPM leaders and officers are misappropriating funds meant for people from Scheduled Communities, the leader said that the party leaders have requested the National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman, Kishor Makwana, to further probe this. Of the three cases taken by Museum police, two cases registered in 2021 have CPM leaders as accused, and one registered in 2022 has Congress leaders and employees of UDF-led cooperative banks as accused, he said.