Congress, CPI(M) cross swords over VACB recommendation against Satheesan

The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] crossed swords on Sunday over a 2025 Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) recommendation for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into alleged Foreign Currency Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010, violation by Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan in the use of charitable foundations for rehabilitating 2018-flood affected families in his constituency, Paravur.

The latest political fracas is against the backdrop of reports that the government has sought a legal opinion in the matter. Law Minister P. Rajeeve dismissed Congress’s attempt to portray Mr. Satheesan as the victim of the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) political witch-hunt.

He said the the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) “self reproach” about sending the SNC Lavalin case to the CBI despite the Vigilance and the Kerala High Court giving a clean chit to the then Power Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the eve of the issuance of the notification for the Assembly elections in 2006 had prompted the Opposition to accuse the LDF of similar underhand tactics.

Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Viswam said the VACB recommendation had come at an inopportune moment for the Congress. LDF convener T.P. Ramakrishnan said Mr. Satheesan, who evinced distrust in State law enforcement and demanded a CBI inquiry at every turn and corner, including the Sabarimala gold theft, should show the gumption to face the FCRA inquiry.

Cong. stance

Meanwhile, Congress leaders rallied behind Mr. Satheesan at the party’s leadership meeting in Wayanad. They claimed that no funds collected from abroad had been credited to Mr. Satheesan’s accounts, and that the charitable foundations had directly underwritten the rehabilitation expenses, including rebuilding houses and providing sewing machines to flood-affected families. The Congress claimed that the VACB failed to make a case against Mr. Satheesan under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). 

Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala termed the government’s “sensationalist move” to implicate Mr. Satheesan in a false case as an election-year propaganda trick to crowd out “discomfiting” public conversations about the Sabarimala gold theft, among other issues bedevilling the LDF government, from the public mind.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal said the bid to implicate Mr. Satheesan in an FCRA case falsely showed the CPI(M)’s desperation in the face of “impending defeat” in the 2026 Assembly polls.