It looks like LDF convenor E P Jayarajan cannot run away from his family's business links with a company associated with union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
After vehemently denying any links, Jayarajan conceded that his wife P K Indira holds shares in Vaidekam Ayurveda Healing Village at Morazha in Kannur. Niraamaya Wellness Retreats, a hospitality firm backed by Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Capital, had entered into a management contract to operate and manage Vaidekam Ayurveda Healing Village on April 22, 2023.
Early this week on March 17, Jayarajan said that if at all his wife was involved in any business he would transfer it to the wife of Opposition Leader V D Satheesan for nothing. But on March 20, Jayarajan made a confession, not like a man embarrassed but like a man persecuted.
"After she had retired in 2022, my wife has been a shareholder in Vaidekam. She is part of this company," Jayarajan told reporters. "Has my wife done anything wrong? Tell me. Is it wrong to take a share in a company," he said.
Two hours later it was a beaming opposition leader who faced the media in his hometown Paravur. "I am especially grateful to E P Jayarajan for himself confirming my allegation that Vaidekam resorts in which Jayarajan and his family hold shares has a business partnership with the company of union minister and Thiruvananthapuram's NDA candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar," Satheesan said.
The Opposition Leader reminded Jayarajan of the promise. "Initially, he said if proved he would give my family whatever he possessed. And this whatever, by his own admission, are the shares his wife owns in Vaidekam Resorts," Satheesan said, and was quick to add: "We are not interested in his shares."
In official records, Jayarajan's wife Puthussery Koroth Indira and son Puthussery Koroth Jaison are listed as company directors of Kannur Ayurvedic Medical Care Private Limited, the parent company that runs Vaidekam. If not in 2022 as Jayarajan mentioned, his wife Indira was appointed director of the company in November 2021. However, his son Jaison was director of the company since its inception in 2014.
The opposition leader had also insinuated that it was the threat of Income Tax Department raids that forced Vaidekam to enter into a tie up with Niraamaya. Though this is hard to establish, the agreement with Niraamaya was signed one-and-a-half months after the IT Department conducted an inspection at Vaidekam.
The IT sleuths, armed with a money laundering complaint, stormed the resort on March 2 last year and the Videkam-Niraamaya deal was inked on April 22. A picture of Indira and Jaison with the top management of Niraamaya on the day the pact was signed is now doing the rounds on social media.
The CPM had also suffered internal strife on account of Jayarajan's close ties to the Vaidekam resort. In December 2022, days before the IT raid in Vaidekam, CPM State Committee member P Jayarajan had reportedly told the State Committee that E P had acquired the property for the resort illegally. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM state secretary M V Govindan were present at the meeting that was not attended by E P. It was then reported that Govindan had even asked P Jayarajan to submit a written complaint. The party, however, stopped short of probing E P's involvement role in the hospitality business.
Niraamaya Retreats was established in 2010 by Jupiter Capital founded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Two of Niraamaya's directors - Mathevanpillai Sivaram and David Abikzir - are Jupiter Capital's non-executive director and chief investment office/executive director (equity) respectively.
