Vijayan breaks silence over daughter's 'controversial' business deals

Thiruvananthapuram: Breaking his silence for the first time ever since a row surrounding the "questionable dealings" of his daughter's firm erupted, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said Veena Vijayan's IT firm deals with everything in a transparent manner.

Congress legislator Mathew Kuzhalnadan has claimed that Veena Vijayan's IT firm received Rs 1.72 crore from a Kochi-based company, CMRL, for "no services rendered", adding "this is how shell companies operate to turn black money into white money by receiving it through the bank".

Responding to this, Vijayan said in the Assembly: "CMRL is one of the many clients of the IT firm - Exalogic, and every business that was done is based on agreements between these two firms. The IT firm has paid all the taxes as applicable and filed the GST returns also. It must be noted that no statement was sought from the IT company."

On this, Kuzhalnadan said: "What Vijayan said today was just like beating around the bush. He has not said anything which has any sum or substance and we will not allow Vijayan to run away with this reply and we will not allow this matter to rest."