Thiruvananthapuram, Congress legislator 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 Congress-led opposition.
While speaking for the motion, Kuzhalnadan told the Assembly that on May 20, 2020 Vijayan's daughter Veena's IT firm's website Exalogic which last had the description of Jaik Balakumar wherein it's stated that Jaik's involvement with Exalogic is at a very personal level where he mentors and guides the founders with his incredible knowledge of all the various aspects of the industry, had disappeared.
When the website reappeared, the reference to Jaik Balakumar was missing.
In his reply, Vijayan lost his cool 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.
A furious Vijayan then said that 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 has filed a breach of privilege notice against Vijayan before the Speaker M.B.Rajesh stating that Vijayan has 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.
With the present Assembly session scheduled to conclude in the last week of July, all eyes are on when this will be taken up as already the Congress-led Opposition is going hammer and tongs against Vijayan and his family's role in the smuggling of gold and currency as revealed by the prime accused in the gold smuggling case-Swapna Suresh.