Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, former State Secretary of the CPI(M), may have never imagined that his allegation that the Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala accepted an expensive mobile phone as a gift from one of the prime accused in the gold smuggling case would eventually boomerang on him.
It took a U-turn when Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate revealed that his Mr. Balakrishnan’s wife, Vinodhini, had used one among the five expensive phones that a builder had handed over to Swapna Suresh, the second accused in the case, as a gift for securing a construction contract under the government’s Life Mission housing project for the poor in Thrissur.
Mr. Balakrishnan had accused Mr. Chennithala of having violated protocol by accepting an expensive mobile phone in a raffle organised by the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram as part of the UAE national raising day in December 2019. The Opposition leader retorted on Saturday by asking Mr. Balakrishnan whether he was unaware that his wife was using the expensive phone.
Ms. Vinodhini Balakrishnan, who has been asked by the Customs to appear before it on March 10 as part of its probe into the foreign currency smuggling case, has denied the allegations.
