Congress party’s youth wing Chelannur unit has landed itself in a major controversy over the allegation of ‘embezzlement’ of funds ‘wrongly’ collected for the Wayanad Landslide relief work. As per reports, Ajal Divanandan is the President of Youth Congress Chelannur constituency. Recently, he wrote a complaint letter to the IYC State President Rahul Mamkootathil in which he accused two Youth Congress leaders of embezzling funds collected for the relief work in the area.
According to Divanandan’s complaint, Chelannur unit’s vice president Aswin Edavalath and youth Congress worker Anas raised funds allegedly in the name of KSU State Secretary Sanuj Kuruvatur. He also alleged that they later embezzled the funds.
Donations collected for the Wayanad Tragedy by Youth Congress Kozhikode have been shamelessly diverted and spent by their Vice President.#Congress not only stains its hands with corruption but now stoops to new lows by exploiting a disaster for their selfish gains. This is a… pic.twitter.com/IQMddXNLPv
— Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (@SVishnuReddy) August 12, 2024
The complaint also alleged that the two individuals did not participate in the activities held in Chelannur for collecting essential items. It added that the controversial fundraiser has hampered any possibilities of another fund collection. The complaint also demanded action against them.
In his defence, Aswin Edavalath, one of the accused of embezzling funds, said that he would lodge a complaint with the party’s state leadership over the baseless allegations levelled against him. He claimed that the complaint was part of an internal rivalry in the local unit of the Youth Congress. He said that if the allegations are found to be true, he will quit public activity.
However, when the Congress party’s youth wing started facing backlash for embezzling funds collected to help Wayanad landslide victims, the Chelannur unit issued a clarification and claimed that no fund scam took place.
Strikingly, the constituency president who initially highlighted the scam in the fundraiser and filed the complaint in this matter, did a U-turn. He issued a new statement in which he denied any such complaints. He claimed that the complaint was false after it was leaked in the media, leading to a major controversy for the Congress party.
The leadership of the constituency committee also claimed that no such complaint was filed. While the Youth Congress district leadership went into denial, the party’s state leadership of the Youth wing claimed that no complaints related to fund collection from Chelannur have come to their attention.
Wayanad Landslide
On 30th July, due to incessant and heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, a major landslide occurred at Mundakki, Chooralmala, Vellarimala Village, in district Wayanad. According to the state government, the landslides killed 229 people, while over 130 are still missing.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the landslides-hit Wayanad district and assured that the Central government will “spare no effort” in helping Kerala in relief and rehabilitation while describing the tragedy as “nature displaying its furious form.” He also conducted an aerial survey over disaster-affected areas in Kerala.
During the aerial survey over Chooralmala, Mundakkai, and Punchirimattom areas, PM Modi was accompanied by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Governor Arif Mohammed Khan.
