No business links with Rajeev Chandrasekhar: EP Jayarajan

KOZHIKODE: LDF convener EP Jayarajan refuted opposition leader VD Satheesan's allegation that he had business links with Union minister and BJP's Thiruvananthapuram candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar. He said he had not seen, talked or called Chandrasekhar over the phone.
Jayarajan was responding to Satheesan's allegations over the alleged business deal between Vaidekam Ayurveda Healing Village, Kannur in which Jayarajan's family members had investments and Niraamaya Wellness Retreats that is allegedly linked to Chandrasekhar.
Jayarajan's wife Indira and son Jaison were key investors and on the board of directors at Vaidekam Ayurveda Healing Village. Niraamaya Wellness Retreats had signed a management contract to operate and manage Vaidekam Ayurveda Healing Village last year. The company has now been rebranded as Niraamaya Retreats Vaidekam.
"If I have a business, then I'm ready to give it to Satheesan for free. Also, my wife does not own any business. She was just a shareholder in a firm. I'm ready to hand over all business properties in my wife's name to his wife," he said. Jayarajan said that he was just an adviser of Vaidekam and reports that ED and I-T had probed the affairs of the firm were fake.
"It is natural for income tax department to instruct firms to pay TDS and some in the media were asking why ED was not probing the firm by pointing out the I-T directive," he added. He said he will file a case and lodge a cyber complaint against the news channel, which he said was levelling fake allegations (akin to blackmail politics) that were sponsored by those with vested interests.
"I don't know whether Niraamaya is a company owned by him (Chandrasekharan). I think it is a registered society or so," Jayarajan added.
When asked about his remarks that the electoral battle in state was between LDF and BJP which was repudiated by the CM and CPM state secretary, he said that he wanted to convey that BJP is luring Congress leaders and the only way to resist BJP's communal-fascist agenda is to vote for CPM.
Jayarajan also tried to explain his controversial remarks that BJP had fielded good candidates in state by saying that the message he wanted to convey was that India was in danger and Sangh Parivar forces will go to any length to achieve their agenda and people should be very wary. "What I meant was Sangh Parivar would go to any length and fielding two central ministers was part of that and there is no point in electing Congress candidates as winning party candidates would go to BJP," he added.
Jayarajan refuted the claim that he had intervened to bring Padmaja Venugopal, the daughter of ex-CM K Karunakaran who had recently joined BJP, into CPM.