Gold smuggling case: ED summons Kerala CM's close aide

Thiruvananthapuram : As the probe continues in gold smuggling case, the Enforcement Directorate asked CM Pinarayi's assistant private secretary to appear before its Kochi office on Friday.

The move comes after prime accused Swapna Suresh's alleged relation with C M Ravindran surfaced.

ED arrested Vijayan's former secretary and senior IAS official M.Sivasankar last month after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Kerala High Court. Back then, reports had suggested Ravindran to be next on the ED radar

When the gold smuggling nexus came to light, Vijayan said heartbeats of many would increase as the probe intensifies.

After the arrest of Sivasankar and CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri, the opposition leaders from the Congress and BJP have taken potshots at Vijayan, asking rhetorically: "Whose heartbeat?"

Ravindran has been in the personal staff of Balakrishnan in 2006-11, when he was the Home Minister in V.S. Achuthanandan and later when Achuthanandan became the Leader of Opposition (2011-16) again he was present and when Vijayan took over as Chief Minister in 2016, Ravindran willed major power.

Political analysts feel what brews trouble is that the probe agencies might have established a Sivasankar-Ravindran axis in the office of Vijayan -- that was the deciding factor and was the last word, when it came to decision making.

Soon after Sivasankar's arrest, the CPI-M leadership tried to play down maintaining Sivasankar being an IAS officer -- a central government employee, so more than Vijayan, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who should be worried.

Should things turn sour for Ravindran, Vijayan could also feel the heat.

IANS report with edits