Estranged ruling front legislator K.B. Ganesh Kumar on Monday told the Lok Ayukta that the personal assets of Public Works Minister V.K. Ebrahim Kunju and his kin needed to be evaluated to find out whether or not the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader had amassed wealth beyond his known sources of income.
He was in court to adduce evidence against the Mr. Kunju’s office, which he had accused of being a hive of corruption and nepotism. The MLA had said the same in the Assembly earlier.
Mr. Ganesh Kumar deposed that in the early 1980s Mr. Kunju was a manual labourer contracted by a private company in Kodungalloor. In the ensuing years, he and his relatives had accumulated considerable wealth. In 2013, Babu M. Palassery, an Opposition legislator from Kunnumkulam in Thrissur, had accused the Minister’s office of corruption in the Assembly. The Minister had assured him that he would refer the MLA’s allegations to the Vigilance and remove the suspect staff from his office. That never happened, he said.
Mr. Ganesh Kumartold the court that he had hard evidence to prove that there was large-scale corruption in the clearance of work bills and also transfers and postings in the Public Works Department.
Later, he told mediapersons outside the court that his life was under threat. He accused the government of shielding the corrupt.
Mr. Kunju, meanwhile, dismissed Mr. Ganesh Kumar’s imputations against him as baseless.
