A former official of Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL), whose statement had formed the basis for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recommending the State Police Chief of Kerala to register a First Information Report (FIR) against former Chief Minister and current Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan in the Exalogic–CMRL pay-off case, has submitted a retraction statement to the ED, it has emerged.

The ED had sent a detailed report to the State Police Chief seeking registration of a separate FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other relevant laws against Mr. Vijayan, former Public Works Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas, and T. Veena, Mr. Vijayan’s daughter and Mr. Riyas’s spouse on September 7, 2026. The report accused Mr. Vijayan of receiving a bribe of ₹3.28 crore through his daughter, based on the alleged admission of CMRL’s former Chief Financial Officer and Chief General Manager P. Suresh Kumar.

It has now come to light that Mr. Kumar submitted a retraction statement to the ED Directorate in Delhi, alleging “illegal and high-handed conduct of the officers of the Kochi office of the Enforcement Directorate.” The Kochi office had issued him a summons on April 16, 2024. “I had submitted statements/clarifications on various questions raised by them relating to our company during interrogation at the ED office. I felt intimidated and pressurised during the recording of my statements,” Mr. Kumar, who has since resigned from CMRL, said in a mail to the company dated May 15, 2024, the same day he submitted the retraction statement to the ED.

At a press conference held on September 11, 2026, following the ED’s report to the State Police Chief, CPI(M) Kerala State Secretariat member Mr. Riyas alleged that the investigative agency was intimidating individuals into issuing statements against him, Ms. Veena, and Mr. Vijayan. He further claimed that such statements were then being circulated to the media as official press releases. In its report, the ED had accused Mr. Riyas of “receipt of bribes and transfer of such bribe funds to Dubai through Veena and known associates.” Ms. Veena allegedly “assisted Mr. Vijayan and Mr. Riyas in collecting and routing bribe funds.”

Incidentally, K.S. Suresh Kumar, the current Chief General Manager of CMRL, also submitted a similarly worded retraction statement to the ED and mailed CMRL about the same on May 15, 2024. The ED Kochi office had issued him a summons on April 8, 2024.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sent a detailed report to the State Police Chief of Keralam seeking registration of a separate first information report (FIR) under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other relevant laws against Leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former Public Works Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas, and T. Veena, who is Mr. Vijayan’s daughter and Mr. Riyas’s spouse, in the Exalogic–Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) pay-off case.

The report, which was sent on Monday (September 7, 2026) reportedly stated that the evidence recovered by the Central agency in the case under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) warranted registration of a case.

The CPI(M) has been on a collision course with the ED, accusing the agency of carrying out a political hit job targeting Mr. Vijayan and his family on behalf of the Central government.

Sources in ED said it would carry out a thorough corruption-related investigation once an FIR has been registered.

Charges in ED report

The report accused Mr. Vijayan of receiving a bribe of ₹3.28 crore through his daughter, based on the alleged admission of CMRL’s former Chief Financial Officer Suresh Kumar. Mr. Riyas was accused of “receipt of bribes and transfer of such bribe funds to Dubai through Veena and known associates.” Ms. Veena allegedly “assisted Mr. Vijayan and Mr. Riyas in collecting and routing bribe funds.” Exalogic Solutions Private Limited was allegedly used for “routing sham payments.” S.N. Sasidharan Kartha, Managing Director of CMRL, was accused of paying bribes, while CMRL’s sister concern Empower India Capital Investments Private Limited was accused of transferring bribes.

Last month, the ED claimed to have found “certain handwritten accounts maintained by Ms. Veena pertaining to ₹85 lakh allegedly transferred to Dubai.” The notes contained “names of persons, amounts handled, spent” besides the amount transferred to Dubai. All persons named in Ms. Veena’s handwritten accounts, along with the individual who had provided the SIM card, were covered during the search, according to an ED release.

The Kochi zonal office of the ED had conducted search operations at nine premises in Kozhikode on August 18 under the PMLA in connection with the case.

In May, the ED claimed to have frozen ₹18.36 crore across 242 accounts identified during search operations at multiple locations, including Mr. Vijayan’s rented house in Thiruvananthapuram and his ancestral home in Kannur.

The agency launched the investigation following findings of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) into alleged corporate fraud and bribe payments. SFIO investigations revealed fictitious cash expenses of ₹182 crore made by CMRL over a span of 15 years, allegedly used to bribe various persons, the ED said.

One of the fake expenses booked by CMRL was towards payments made to Ms. Veena. Exalogic Solutions Private Limited, the now-defunct company owned by her, had allegedly received fraudulent payments totalling ₹2.78 crore from CMRL under the guise of IT consultancy services.

Additionally, Empower India Capital Investments Private Limited, operated by Sasidharan Kartha, extended loans of ₹50 lakh to Exalogic despite the firm failing to make timely repayments, the SFIO alleged.

The vexing issue of which party would get the Deputy Leader of the Opposition post in the Keralam Assembly is roiling the Left Democratic Front (LDF), with Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan and Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Viswam locking horns over the matter on Saturday (August 22, 2026).

Mr. Vijayan told the media in Thrissur on Saturday morning that there was no doubt that the post of Deputy Leader of the Opposition would go to his party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which leads the Opposition front. He summarily ruled out any chance of the post being given to the CPI, the second-largest constituent of the alliance, which has been vociferous in its demand for the position.

Letter to be submitted

Mr. Vijayan said the only requirement left now was to submit a letter to the Speaker naming the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. “I will write and submit the letter, after which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition will assume charge,” he told the media.

While he refused to hazard a guess on who would be chosen for the post, he said there was no ambiguity that it would be a CPI(M) leader.

Later in the day, Mr. Viswam told the media in Thiruvananthapuram that he would not believe Mr. Vijayan would say what he was quoted as saying. “But if he had indeed said that, I would humbly state that it was unbecoming of the Leader of the Opposition to have said so and that it was not in keeping with his political maturity,” Mr. Viswam said.

He made it clear that the post of Deputy Leader of the Opposition was a contentious issue within the LDF. To a question, he said no politician or media house had the right to put a price on the CPI’s self-respect.

The United Democratic Front (UDF) government’s stand in the Supreme Court that it will implement Section 14 of the Union government’s Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) Act, or the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, will sacrifice minority interests and adversely affect the writ petitions on the matter pending in the Supreme Court, Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday.

In a statement, Mr.Vijayan welcomed the Supreme Court’s quashing of the interim order of the High Court imposing administrator rule in the Waqf Board. However, he said it was worrying that the State government has repeated its position taken in the High Court last week that Section 14 of the new Waqf Act in the Supreme Court too. The amended Act had mandated the inclusion of two non-Muslim members in the Waqf Board, a move against which several pleas are pending in the Supreme Court. The previous LDF government did not include non-Muslim members in the board.

In the intervention petition filed in the Supreme Court during the LDF government’s tenure, it also took a clear stand that non-Muslims should not be appointed to the Waqf Board, he said. He quoted a part of the petition to this effect: “There is no rationale behind inclusion of non-Muslim members in the Waqf Boards and there is strong legal contention that such inclusion of non-Muslims violates articles 14, 25 & 26 of the Constitution of India. As per the amended section 14 of the Act, members from Muslim Community will be a minority in the board. Except the 4 members under clause (c) of sub-section (1) of section 14, all the seven members can be non-Muslims and it is left to the State Government to nominate members of their choice in the Waqf Board”.

Spreading rumours

Mr. Vijayan said that the UDF government is pretending to be a protector of minorities and at the same time betraying the minorities according to the Sangh Parivar agenda. “Those connected to the UDF are spreading rumours that the current Waqf Board members have some disqualifications. Such observations have been made in the statement filed on behalf of the State government in the High Court. If the Waqf Board members have disqualifications, the government has the power and obligation to take action as per the law. But no such action as prescribed by law has been taken so far. Instead, they are creating a smokescreen through the media and misleading even the courts,” he said.

Mr. Vijayan alleged that the moves are part of a conspiracy to capture the Waqf Board after change of power in the State. “When the LDF government came to power in 2016, the Waqf Board appointed by the previous UDF government was allowed to continue until its term in 2019. The UDF is now trying to carry out political sabotage in such statutory bodies. The UDF has degraded to the point of accepting the Sangh Parivar-sponsored law that questions the rights of minorities, the purity of the intention of the Waqf Act and the very concept of Waqf. In this situation, we extend all possible support to the efforts of the current Waqf Board to ensure that the legal battles launched by Kerala are not weakened,” he said. 

The Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) registered its protest in the Kerala Assembly on Monday over the non-disbursal of monthly pension for unemployed women as well as transwomen under the Sthree Suraksha Scheme after the United Democratic Front (UDF) government took charge.

Although Speaker Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan disallowed its notice for an adjournment motion on the issue, the LDF chose to continue to participate in the proceedings after Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan formally marked the Opposition’s protest, contrary to the usual practice of staging a walkout.

The Speaker declined to admit the adjournment motion based on Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan’s explanation that the government can continue with the scheme only after a scrutiny of the beneficiary lists. Mr. Satheesan alleged that the previous LDF government had implemented it at the fag end of its term, just before the 2026 Assembly elections.

“An amount of ₹1,770 crore has been allocated in the Budget for this scheme. We have not decided that the scheme will be discontinued just because the previous government had implemented it. There have been several complaints about the beneficiary list, especially that it was prepared without any field-level checks. No committee was constituted in any local body to select the beneficiaries, who were selected by party local and area committees. We will have to verify these complaints before deciding whether to continue with the scheme,” said the Chief Minister.

Govt stance unfair: Vijayan

Mr. Vijayan said that it was “unfair” on the part of the government to take “such an attitude towards women.”

“The Chief Minister is still not making it clear whether the government will continue with the scheme. The claim that the beneficiary selection was political is false, as anyone could have submitted the online application. The most number of applications were received from Malappuram district, followed by Palakkad. The scrutiny was conducted in a transparent manner by the local bodies and also by integrating the scheme applications with government systems, including K-SMART, Aadhaar, ration cards, the SPARK system for service pensioners, Treasury services and birth and death databases, to ensure that the applicants are not drawing any other benefits from the government and that they are AAY, BPL card holders,” said Mr. Vijayan. 

Mr. Vijayan said around 14 lakh applications were received through the portal in the first two weeks, from which 10 lakh applicants were found to be eligible after scrutiny. Currently, the scheme has 16 lakh beneficiaries, with 5 lakh more pending applications on which no action has been taken.

CPI(M) MLA A.C. Moideen, who along with CPI MLA K. Rajan and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA P.K. Praveen had moved the adjournment motion, said that no other State has implemented a social security scheme “by giving value to the domestic work” carried out by women. He said the LDF government had in its Budget earlier this year allocated ₹3,720 crore for the scheme.

“The implementation of the scheme began in October 2025, not just before the elections. The beneficiaries have come from even local bodies ruled by the UDF, after vetting by committees in which all parties are represented,” he said.

Minister for Local Self-Governments (LSG) K.M. Shaji’s stand that the Kerala government is not opposed to the Union government’s insistence of an emblem in front of houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) has drawn sharp criticism from the Opposition.

The Minister’s stand is in sharp contrast to the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s, which had opposed the same citing the dignity of the beneficiaries of the housing scheme.

After his remarks on Saturday (June 27, 2026) kicked up a storm, Mr. Shaji, who met the media again on Sunday (June 28, 2026), claimed that the reports of the PMAY emblem having Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph are wrong.

“I said there was nothing wrong with displaying the PMAY emblem. Can anyone show me a PMAY emblem carrying the Prime Minister’s photograph? Over 1.2 lakh poor families will get new houses under the scheme. Houses meant for the poor should not be blocked by creating unnecessary controversies in the name of an emblem,” he said.

Shaji on LDF’s stance

Mr. Shaji alleged that the previous LDF government had withdrawn from the PMAY agreement not because of ideological reasons but due to its inability to provide the State’s financial share due to a deepening financial crisis. 

Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan has on Saturday posted in his Facebook page a video of a speech he had made on the issue during his tenure as the Chief Minister, when he said that the government is opposed to displaying any logo or photograph in front of houses of beneficiaries of various schemes.

“When you put up an emblem or logo in front of a house, it conveys a message to those who are living there that the house does not belong to them. The houses belong to the beneficiaries. Our stand is that no display board which questions the self-respect of the beneficiaries should be put up in front of houses. If the Union government’s stand is that it will not provide its share of housing schemes if the logo is not put up, we are ready to give up that aid,” Mr. Vijayan had said.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] MP A.A. Rahim said at a press conference on Sunday that the LDF government, which had built 5.78 lakh houses under the LIFE project with a beneficiary share of ₹4 lakh each from the State government, never insisted on putting up LIFE logo on any of the houses. However, the Union government, which is providing only ₹1.5 lakh for houses under the PMAY scheme with the State government adding an additional ₹2.5 lakh to make it on par with LIFE scheme, is insisting on a logo.

“Mr. Shaji now claims that the logo does not have Mr. Modi’s photograph. The issue is not whether the logo has anyone’s image. Display of a housing project logo in front of a house affects the dignity of those living in it. The beneficiaries should not get a feeling that they are living in a house which they got free of cost,” said Mr. Rahim. The MP also held up photographs of large PMAY logos in front of houses in north Indian States.

“It is the Constitutional duty of governments to provide aid to the homeless to construct houses. The Modi government has ignored this fact while making the display of PMAY logo mandatory. The State government is supposed to oppose it, rather than follow it faithfully. The Chief Minister should explain whether the government agrees with Mr. Shaji’s opinions on this,” he said.

Violence broke out outside Kerala Opposition Leader and former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s residence on Wednesday (May 27, 2026) after Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials completed a raid and were leaving the premises.

According to visuals shown on news channels, suspected CPI(M) workers gathered outside Mr. Vijayan’s rented home and protested against the raid. The situation escalated as some protesters blocked the vehicle carrying ED officials and threw stones at it.

The police and central security personnel struggled to control the crowd. The vehicle, which also had women officials on board, was targeted during the incident.

The windshield of the vehicle was broken in the incident.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] workers came out on the streets across Kerala on Wednesday (May 27, 2026) to protest against the Directorate of Enforcement’s (ED) raids on the houses of former Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan. Even as the raid was ongoing at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram, party workers gathered in large numbers raising slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government and the ED.

Addressing a press conference here, CPI(M) State Secretary M.V.Govindan said that the raids are “the latest instance of a planned attack” against the CPI(M) by the Sangh Parivar and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The party will strongly resist such attempts politically and legally, with the support of the masses, he said.

The raids are part of the long-running inquiry into whether Mr. Vijayan’s daughter and former IT consultant, T. Veena’s now-defunct firm, Exalogic, had received sizeable monthly retainers from Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL), a private mining company, during the 2017-2021 period allegedly without rendering any tangible service.

Mr. Govindan said that several Central agencies, including the Income Tax department, Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the ED had carried out investigations in the past. The High Court as well as the Supreme Court had in the past dismissed these allegations, he said.

(The Kerala High Court had dismissed a petition seeking a court-monitored probe against Mr Vijayan and his daughter, Ms. Veena, in connection with the latter’s financial transactions with CMRL as the mining firm’s IT consultant during the 2017-2021 period.

(The High Court found no evidence that established a cognisable offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Later in October 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed Congress leader Mathew Kuzhalnadan’s same plea and cautioned him against using courts as platforms for political battles.)

Mr. Govindan accused the Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF) of being hand-in-glove with the BJP “as the Central agencies hunted major Opposition leaders across the country.”

‘Two UDF Ministers’ names also came up’

“The Congress’ national leaders came to Kerala and asked why Mr.Vijayan was not being arrested. It was the Congress’ petition which served as the basis for former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest. The Delhi High Court later dumped these allegations as baseless. Similar attempts are now being made in Kerala to target Mr.Vijayan and the CPI(M). Two UDF Ministers’ names also came up in the CMRL transactions. However there has been no case or investigation against them. People suspect that Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday (Tuesday), and the UDF are supportive of these raids. The Congress has been alleging a deal between the CPI(M) and the BJP, but now the real deal between the Congress and the BJP has been proven,” he said.

Mr. Govindan questioned the basis on which the ED detained Mr. Vijayan, noting that he is not an accused in the case.

“This is a politically motivated attack against the party. No FIR even exists in this case. The High Court only said that the investigation prior to the registration of an FIR can continue. The party would not have intervened if this was a case against Ms.Veena alone, but here an attempt is being made to arraign Mr.Vijayan as an accused and through him attack the party,” he said.

Mr. Govindan said the CPI(M) would organise torch-lit protests at all party branch committees across the State on Wednesday evening against the attempt to target Mr.Vijayan and the party. Mass protests are also being held at all local, area and district levels.

Tharoor refutes Brittas’ charges

Meanwhile, Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Shashi Tharoor, MP, has refuted CPI(M) leader and MP John Brittas’ contention that the Congress actively aided the ED raids on Pinarayi Vijayan.

Stalin slams raids

Meanwhile, DMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has condemned the ED raids.

“Such actions once again raise serious concerns over the growing pattern of central agencies being weaponised against Opposition leaders. Incidentally, this also exposes the hollowness of the reckless allegations made by some Congress leaders who repeatedly questioned why Pinarayi Vijayan had ‘not yet been targeted by the BJP,” Mr. Stalin said.

(with inputs from Tamil Nadu Bureau)