Misled assembly; Statements on daughter's company untrue, breach of privilege notice against CM

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalanadan on Friday submitted a breach of privilege notice against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for misleading the Kerala Assembly on Tuesday while replying to an adjournment motion moved by the opposition. It is alleged that the statements made by the chief minister regarding his daughter Veena Vijayan’s company are untrue. Mathew Kuzhalnadan MLA gave a letter to the Speaker in this regard.

The notice is issued under Rule 154 of the Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Legislative Assembly. In the wake of new revelations in the gold smuggling case, the assembly had the other day granted permission for an adjournment motion.

Mathew Kuzhalnadan MLA brought to the attention of the House that the website of Exalogic Solutions, owned by Chief Minister's daughter Veena Vijayan, stated that Jaik Balakumar, director of PricewaterhouseCoopers firm, is the company's mentor.

However, in his reply, the chief minister lost his cool and slammed Kuzhalnadan for airing baseless statements about his daughter's IT firm and terming it a blatant lie. He claimed that she has never called Jaik Balakumar - a director of PricewaterhouseCoopers -- her mentor.

The chief minister said the Assembly should not be used to drag the names of family members and that too with baseless allegations. It was against this that Kuzhalnadan filed a breach of privilege notice against the chief minister before Speaker M B Rajesh stating that he had misled the House.

Along with the notice, Kuzhalandan has provided evidence from the website of Exalogic which mentions about Jaik Balakumar and his association with Veena's IT firm and also a video of a news report of a leading Malayalam TV news channel where Veena is saying about her firms' association with Jaik Balakumar.