NEW DELHI : The CPI(M) Central Committee in its meeting held Monday, called upon people of Kerala to reject UDF-BJP’s tactics to destabilise the ruling government using baseless propaganda on gold smuggling case. The party is of the firm belief that the public will defeat the Opposition parties' malicious agenda seeking Chief Minister’s resignation on their falsified claims, the Central Committee said in its communiqué. To a query during press meet held post the meeting CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that, there was nothing new to add regarding consultancy-and-foreign-fund controversy beside all that was clarified by the party earlier.
The gold smuggling case is entirely under Centre’s purview. The State government has no say in Customs intercepting gold at airports. When the gold smuggling via diplomatic baggage came to light, the Chief Minister in a written request, urged the Centre to deploy top central investigation agencies to unravel the case. The NIA subsequently took up the case and a full-fledged probe is underway. Let all those found guilty face conviction. It would however be preposterous to draw conclusions at this stage. The ruling government is currently focused on mitigation and treatment efforts to control spread of the virus. And, the UDF and BJP are busy devising ways to unseat the Left rule in the state, Yechury told the media in his virtual briefing on the meeting.
The Kerala government has never tried to hamper investigations in any manner. If there was even a slight attempt to evade the probe at any stage, the questions thrown up by Opposition might have made some sense, Yechury added.
