For the past several months, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] in Kerala has been in the soup over the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank scam, being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Thrissur district. Recently, the Communist Party of India (CPI) — the second biggest ally in Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) government after the CPI(M) — also suffered a jolt with one of its top leaders in the state capital district being ‘picked up’ for questioning by the central agency’s probe team, in connection with alleged irregularities in the dealings of yet another bank scam in Thiruvananthapuram.
An extensive ED raid at the Kandala Services Cooperative Bank in Thiruvananthapuram, which began early morning on Wednesday, November 8, resulted in the former president of the Bank, Bhasurangan, being booted out of the CPI. “When the issue surfaced, first he was moved to a lower committee in the party and now after the ED raid started we have decided to expel him from the party,” said CPI’s Thiruvananthapuram district secretary Mangodu Radhakarishnan.
Trouble was brewing in the Kandala bank for a while. The depositors of the bank, mostly ordinary people from the rural areas of the state capital city, were up in arms after a fraud of over Rs 100 crore was detected in the bank. Playing down the raid, Cooperative Minister VN Vasavan said what the ED had found was nothing more than what the Kerala Crime Branch had earlier detected. This statement baffled many, and questions were raised as to how could the Pinarayi Vijayan government allow the tainted Bhasurangan to continue in the post of Administrative Convener of the Thiruvananthapuram Regional Cooperative Milk Producers Union (TRCMPU) of Milma, if the police had found out the fraud.
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As the raid of the ED was going on late in the night, Bhasurangan developed uneasiness and is presently admitted to a leading private hospital here. The ED officials have raided multiple locations in the state capital city, including the residence of a few previous officials who were a part of the bank administration along with Bhasurangan. The CPI leadership has gone into a huddle as a section in the party was unhappy the way Bhasurangan was shielded.
The Opposition Congress is also not out of the woods. The Pulpally Primary Service Cooperative Bank in Wayanad, formerly helmed by Congress leader KK Abraham, is also embroiled in a controversy over allegedly fraudulent loans to the tune of Rs 8 crore. Abraham, a former general secretary of the state unit of the Congress, was arrested by the ED on Tuesday after he was called in for interrogation at the ED’s zonal office in Kozhikode and the officials found his explanations regarding several financial transactions unsatisfactory.
According to the ED, Abraham happened to be the overall in-charge of the bank, as President who played a key role in sanctioning various loans by overvaluing the properties to the applicants. ED had initiated investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB), Wayanad, Kerala against the Governing Body members and bank officials of the Pulpally Service Cooperative Bank.
“Investigation revealed that bank officials and its governing body members sanctioned enhanced loans without the consent and knowledge of the loan applicants by overvaluing the properties offered as collateral and the over and above amount of the loans were given to Sajeevan Kollappallil (private person),” the ED said in a statement. The loans were not repaid by the applicants and thus caused a total loss of Rs 5.62 crore to the Pulpally Service Cooperative Bank.
“The proceeds of crime in the form of overvalued loans were deposited in the bank account of Kollappallil, maintained with Pulpally Service Cooperative Bank, Pulpally and subsequently withdrawn in cash and syphoned off. Kollappallil was arrested by ED on September 26 and he is presently in judicial custody,” said the ED official.
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