Palakkad(Kerala) | Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday rejected as "baseless" senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala's allegation of a Rs 700 crore scam in the procurement of software for primary cooperative societies.
Vijayan, at a press conference here, also denied again the Congress-led UDF's allegations of a BJP-CPI(M) deal in Kerala in the run-up to the Assembly polls on April 9.
He said that the UDF and opposition leader V D Satheesan think they can say anything or spread lies, and claimed that the people will not be swayed by such tactics.
The CM also hit out at Satheesan, alleging that a RSS leader had recently said that the opposition leader had sought the help of the right-wing organisation a few times to win in elections.
"We are not that desperate. We have never had any links with or supported any form of communalism, and that is going to be our stand in the future also," Vijayan said.
Regarding Chennithala's allegation of a Rs 700 crore scam in procuring software for the 4,415 primary cooperative societies in Kerala, Vijayan said the process was carried out in a transparent manner and had received the approval of the Kerala High Court.
"The allegation is baseless, and the intention is to simply make an accusation," he contended.
Vijayan said that in 2021, a tender was floated and thereafter, a Letter of Intent for doing the work at Rs 206 crore was given to the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
"But the company unilaterally withdrew from it in 2024, and therefore, it was decided in 2025 to float a new tender," he said.
Subsequently, a winning bid was received, and the award of the contract to the winner was approved by the Kerala High Court, the CM contended.
Chennithala, on Friday, had alleged that the contract given to TCS was cancelled under "suspicious circumstances" and later the new tender was awarded to a Kannur-based company -- Dinesh Beedi Cooperative Society -- which had no experience in the field.
He had also claimed that providing software to over 4,400 societies would now cost around Rs 915 crore, compared to Rs 206 crore earlier quoted by TCS, resulting in a loss of around Rs 700 crore to the exchequer.
