'Vijayan cancelled mining licence after illegal gratification matter surfaced'

WITH Congress legislator Mathew Kuzhalnadan criticising Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for allegedly favouring the mining firm CMRL instead of illegal gratification to his daughter's IT firm, a purported document surfaced on Wednesday suggesting that "Vijayan took almost five years to cancel the licence to CMRL, and it was done after Kuzhalnadan first raised the matter last year", report online news sites quoting IANS.

The CM's daughter, Veena Vijayan, is the sole director of Bengaluru-based IT firm Exalogic which is currently in a "dormant state".

Last year, a media reported that CMRL had paid Veena and her IT firm Rs 1.72 crore as pointed out by the Income Tax, following which Kuzhalnadan dug deep into it and has been hitting hard at Vijayan.

Vijayan, however, denied all allegations, saying his hands were clean and did nothing wrong.

Kuzhalnadan later presented more documents pointing out that even after the Central government came out with an order in 2019 asking state governments to terminate all mining lease agreements granted to private companies engaged in mining materials used by the Atomic Energy Department, no action was taken.

However, on Wednesday, a purported document surfaced that the Vijayan government cancelled the mining lease agreement of CMRL on December 18, 2023, several weeks after the controversy first surfaced.

Kuzhalnadan on Wednesday said that Vijayan has been interfering in providing gratis to CMRL.

"Vijayan has to tell why even though the licence could have been cancelled in 2019, how the company was allowed to continue its operation. In the coming days, I will come out with more revelations on what Vijayan has been doing," said Kuzhalnadan.