Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M.V. Govindan announced a grassroots campaign to expose the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)- led Central government’s “brazen politicisation” of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED).
He said the ED’s clean chit to BJP leaders in the 2021 Kodakara hawala case exposed the agency’s Janus-faced political nature.
In a questionable court filing, Mr. Govindan stated the ED had contradicted the State police finding that ₹3.36 crore looted from a car at Kodakara in Thrissur was part of a significant tranche of hawala money sent to the BJP’s local office for unaccounted election spending in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly polls.
‘Dubious finding’
Mr. Govindan noted that the ED had reached the dubious finding without even conducting a fig leaf of an investigation. Notably, the ED had not questioned T. Satheesh, the then BJP Thrissur office secretary, who deposed to the police about the hawala transaction.
He described the ED’s finding as a whitewash meant to protect top the BJP leaders, including the then State secretary K. Surendran from prosecution.
He said the CPI(M) would put the ED’s legal shenanigans on public trial in the people’s court. Mr. Govindan said the BJP had recurrently used the ED as a catspaw to hobble Opposition parties, jailing their leaders on flimsy politically motivated charges and freezing the bank accounts of the non-BJP parties to impede their campaign machinery during elections.
Scores of leaders and political parties opposed to the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian brand of divisive politics were victims of the ED’s political witch hunt. The ED registered hundreds of cases against the BJP’s detractors. The Supreme Court and various high courts noted that less than five ended in conviction.
‘Mere ploy‘
Mr. Govindan said the ED’s charade of arresting the Central government’s detractors, confiscating their assets, and raiding premises was a mere ploy to give the BJP a propaganda advantage at the hustings. In Kerala, the tacit Congress-BJP-Indian Union Muslim League-Social Democratic Party of India-Jamaat-e-Islami “rainbow coalition” repeatedly piggybacked on the ED’s the lies against the CPI(M).
However, the conspiracy came to nought at the polling booth. Mr. Govindan said the BJP had subverted the ED as an instrument of blackmail to coerce business houses and political opponents to fall in line.
He said the CPI(M) would bring ED to book politically and legally. It would take its battle against the BJP’s “catspaw agency” at the national level with like-minded secular democratic parties.
Published – March 26, 2025 08:59 pm IST
