Once photographs got splashed of the controversial lady with Sivasankar and the CM himself, the government and the CPM came under pressure.
New Delhi: In the wake of an NIA inquiry into attempted gold smuggling in “diplomatic baggage” that rocked Kerala early last week, the Left Front government may have averted a major political crisis for the time being. But the scandal has all the potential to dampen the chances of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan securing a second term in office, something which the ruling CPM was almost certain to achieve in the next Assembly elections due in May 2021. It all started with the seizure of 30 kg of gold, though smuggling of the yellow metal is a routine thing in the state, at the international airport in Trivandrum last Sunday. What made the difference this time was that the consignment was addressed to the UAE Consulate-General office in the state capital and hence enjoyed exemption from routine Customs examination. However, the Customs officials at the airport, on prior information, withheld the consignment till a senior official from the consulate arrived at the airport. But before that happened two others claiming authorization from the Consulate tried to force the Customs official to let the cargo pass. Of these two individuals, one lady named Swapna Suresh had earlier worked as executive secretary at the UAE Consulate-General’s office. The other accused, Sarith Kumar, who had first turned up to collect the consignment at the airport, too had worked with the Consulate in the past. The Consulate had already informed the Customs that Kumar had been removed as PRO a year back and had not been assigned to collect the diplomatic cargo, which the Consulate claims were dates and other eatables from the Gulf. So the Customs did not release the cargo and opened the same in the presence of officials from the Consulate, another condition while examining diplomatic cargo, and found it contained gold bars worth Rs 15 crore. This is a pittance compared to the seizures that had taken place in different airports in the state in the past.
It is a story of a web within the web. What made the difference this time is the “diplomatic” tag connected with the consignment and the connection of the lady, who is on the run, said to be the key player in the racket. Soon after the seizure it was revealed that Swapna had close links with higher-ups In the Chief Minister’s office. It turned out that she was very close to the Principal Secretary of the Chief Minister, M. Sivasankar, who also is secretary Information & Technology. Swapna currently holds the post of business development manager with the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Limited (KSITIL) with senior IAS officer M. Sivasankar as its chairman. All hell broke loose once the revelations of Swapna’s background and links came to light. The Opposition clamoured for the removal of Sivasankar who was at the centre of another controversy a month ago. At that time he had taken a decision, so he claimed to give a data collection job regarding corona victims to a US-Based company Sprinklr. When the Opposition raised this as a big issue Sivasankar owned up responsibility. However, the Pinarayi Vijayan government was forced to cancel the deal but Sivasankar survived the day, some say, with protection from the Chief Minister. Like in the time of Sprinklr deal, Pinarayi Vijayan tried to defend his secretary on the first day his name was dragged into the smuggling racket. The CM also claimed on the same day that he had no clue as to who was this Swapna Suresh or her antecedents. Also, Vijayn brushed aside opposition demand for the removal of Sivasankar.
Once the newspapers and social media splashed photographs of the controversial lady with Sivasankar and the Chief Minister himself, the government and the CPM came under pressure. Vijayan was forced to retract by asking his favourite officer to resign. In fact here also there was a conscious effort on the part of CPM to divert the course of the scandal to the smuggling aspect alone and keep the CM’s office out of the controversy. So first it was said that the Principal Secretary was summarily removed following news about his personal connection with Swapna Suresh. But for a few hours Sivasankar continued to hold the post of IT Secretary. When this was brought up once again by the Opposition and the media, it was officially announced that Sivasankar has gone on a long leave. He still has two more years in service. Subsequently, the CM shot off a letter to the Prime Minister seeking an inquiry by a central agency into the gold smuggling. The state government, however, has not ordered an inquiry into how a senior-most officer in the Chief Minister’s office became a key player in the sordid drama. Political grapevine has it that Sivasankar allegedly had helped the Chief Minister’s daughter set up an IT firm of her own in Bengaluru. Incidentally, the name of her company too had figured at the time of the Sprinklr controversy. It is perhaps for the first time a Chief Minister’s family has been dragged into the open under Left rule. CPM and the Chief Minister may have successfully blunted the political aspect to the case by getting NIA to probe the incident, but there are rumblings within the Left Front over CMO’s alleged role in the smuggling episode. CPI, the other communist party in the Front, had demanded Sivasankar’s removal at the time of Sprinklr itself. Now they have rubbed it on to the Big Brother CPM that had the Chief Minister listened to them at the time of Sprinklr, the current embarrassment could have been avoided.
However, the CPM and the CM seem to be in no mood to listen to others. They still harp in unison over vested interests and “bourgeois” (Syndicate as Pinarayi calls them) media out to malign a communist government. Meanwhile, the Opposition hopes that NIA will widen its scope of inquiry by including the CMO too into it. This at present seems to be a tall order given past experiences of inquiries into gold smuggling in the state.