It’s not just one company that Veena Vijayan’s firm has ‘taken’ money from: Cong MLA

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 (IANS) Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnaden on Tuesday once again targetted Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena over tax-related matters of her company and dared the CPI(M) to make the statements of her firm public.

“Till late, we knew that her IT firm had collected Rs 1.72 crore from Kochi-based CMRL - a mining company for the services rendered, but it fell flat when the Income Tax authorities said that there were no services rendered at all,” said Kuzhalnaden.

“But now I challenge the CPI(M) because it was defending Veena and hence I wish to tell all that her company has not just collected from one CMRL company alone, but other companies as well. My request to the CPI(M) is to release the list and once they do, I will come again,” said Kuzhalnaden.

“What’s happening here is organised loot and institutionalised corruption which takes place through shell companies. We heard that the GST accounts of Veena and her IT firm have been closed. Her firm claims to be engaged in the educational software business and CMRL is a mining company. What has such a company got to do with educational software? The employees of CMRL had disclosed to the income tax authorities that no services were rendered by her IT firm. Later, after realizing their folly, they wanted to give a fresh statement, but that was not allowed,” he added.

Veena Vijayan found herself in a spot last week  when a media report mentioned that CMRL (based in Kochi) had paid her and Exalogic (a firm owned by Veena) a sum of Rs 1.72 crore during 2017-2020 for IT-based services rendered to the Kochi firm.

The report claimed that the Income Tax Appellate Board, while examining the tax returns of CMRL, stumbled upon payments made to Veena and her IT firm.

Following the media report, Kuzhalnaden, a lawyer by profession, has been criticising Vijayan and his daughter daily.