Not surprisingly, the expose has touched off a demand for re-investigation. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has had a meeting with the State police chief and decided to re-investigate the scam. Legal experts are learnt to have told the Government that it could go for a re-investigation in the matter.

The immediate effect of the expose will be that it will badly affect the BJP candidate’s chances of a victory from the Palakkad assembly constituency, a BJP stronghold, which is going to the polls on November 20. The by-election has been necessitated after the Palakkad MLA Shafi Parambil won the parliamentary election from the Vadakkara Lok Sabha constituency. The raging controversy has exposed the party’s claim of being a party with a difference. In the wake of the expose, the party has become the butt of many a joke. Political rivals say the BJP has now metamorphosed into a party with full of differences!

It all began with the Tirur Satish dropping the bombshell that the black money sent from Karnataka was meant for BJP’s election campaign. Satish claimed he guarded the six bags containing the black money at the BJP’s Thrissur office, allegedly in the presence of party state president K. Surendran. In an ambush operation, which took place days later, anonymous persons stole the cash which was being transported to Alappuzha in a car. The Kerala police acted fast and arrested 23 people in connection with the theft. Satish said he had not reported the matter to the police at the party leadership’s instance. His statement to the police was that the six bags contained only election material!

He came to know that the bags contained cash only when it was opened in the presence of BJP leaders and the money distributed to various party leaders later. The man who brought the money from Karnataka, Dharmarajan, was close to K. Surendran, according to a statement he made to the police. One of the first persons Dharmarajan contacted on phone after the theft was K. Surendran’s son. And he reportedly made as many as 11 calls. Dharmarajan’s claim was that he was caring only Rs 25 lakh while on his way to Alappuzha. But the police recovered over Rs 1.75 crore from the arrested persons.

The Kerala police had submitted a detailed report to both the Enforcement Directorate(ED) and the Income Tax Department for further action because the ED was the competent authority to act as black money was involved and also as the source of the funds is outside the State. The police sub mitted the report to ED and IT Dept. in 2021. But the ED has been sitting tight on the report for three years for obvious reasons! It is an open secret that the ED seldom acts if BJP leaders or activists are involved in money-laundering cases.

Satish also claimed that he made the statement after he had a talk with senior BJP leader in Kerala Sobha Surendran, who is at loggerheads with the official BJP leadership in Kerala. Incidentally, Sobha was keen on contesting from Palakkad. But the BJP’s state leadership gave the ticket to C. Krishnakumar, the BJP’s state general secretary. An enraged Sobha was settling scores by encouraging Satish to make the expose. That is the version being put out by various political leaders and political experts. Sobha reportedly gave the game away, Satish claimed, when she posed a question: why was she being denied the state BJP chief’s post?

The LDF leaders say that the revelations made by the office secretary validate the allegations previously made by the Front regarding the Kodakara scam. They have alleged that the BJP had brought in hawala money concealed in bags and that Dharmarajan, who delivered the cash, had met BJP state chief K. Surendran. The arrangements for the stay of Dharmarajan was allegedly made with the party leaders’ knowledge. Media reports have it that in all, Rs 35 crore was reportedly funnelled for election purposes in 2021 assembly elections!

Meanwhile, K. Surendran is on record that he would end public life if his involvement was proved. He accused the CPI(M ) of being behind the allegations made by Satish.

Whatever the denouement, the damning disclosures have pushed the BJP on the defensive. The party is finding it extremely difficult to prove their non-involvement in the scam. According to latest reports, Dharmarajan has said that as many as 16 BJP leaders were involved in the scam. Satish has revealed a few names in this regard. And more disclosures are likely to be made in the days to come, exposing the BJP’s claim of being a corruption-less party for what it is: a humongous sham. (IPA Service)