Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 28 (IANS): BJP's Kerala unit President K.Surendran on Wednesday asked Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his CPI-M to respond to the two "grave" allegations that have surfaced against him linked to a land scam to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore and theother involving two different incidents where he handled money to the tune of over Rs 2 crore.

The scam regarding the land deal was first reported by on online media by award winning journalist Sandhya Ravikumar where she alleged that along with businessman Farris Abubacker and leading builder Shobha Developers, they had amassed land in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

“We demand that Vijayan and the CPI-M break their silence and come clean on the allegation leveled by the woman journalist as this is a very serious issue. This group, along with the support of Vijayan, have been reported to have amassed 500 acres of land in Kerala by tweaking the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008, in 2018,” Surendran claimed.

Incidentally, Abubacker and his closeness to Vijayan has always been a talking point in the CPI-M, with none other than veteran leader and former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan often speaking about him.

Surendran said: "If the Vijayan government cannot order a probe into this, the help of the Central agencies should be sought.”

He also demanded that a probe be launched into the allegations leveled by a top former veteran journalist of the CPI-M’s party organ ‘Deshabhimani’, that when Vijayan, while being the state party Secretary, he was witness to him collecting and counting Rs 2 crore cash at his office in Kochi and another incident of Vijayan collecting Rs 2 million in cash at a hotel in the capital district.