Kerala Opposition Leader VD Satheesan | Photo credit: THULASI KAKKAT
The United Democratic Front (UDF) on Saturday sought to push back against the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) gambit to dock the opposition over the whereabouts and use of funds collected by the Congress for building houses for landslide-displaced families in Mundakkai and Chooralmala in Wayanad, Kerala.
Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan told reporters in Kasaragod that the party will submit an accurate audit of the funds after the Congress fulfills its promise to the people. He fended off questions about where Congress had parked the substantial funds that were allegedly collected through a mobile phone app.
The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) had earlier said that the funds were kept as a joint bank account operated by KPCC president Sunny Joseph and Mr. Satheesan. Recently, the CPI(M) raised a row with the Congress over Wayanad rehabilitation that details of the so-called joint account were not included in the affidavits submitted by leaders for the Assembly elections and threatened legal action.
The controversy resurfaced after All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary KC Venugopal told a television channel that the funds were parked in a private bank in Thiruvananthapuram.
When reporters asked the Leader of the Opposition if Mr. Venugopal’s statement contradicted the party’s stand on the placement of funds donated by the public, Mr. Satheesan said, “The Congress has no obligation to take up the matter publicly. The accounts are presented only after the project is completed.”
Mr Satheesan sought to deflect criticism from the LDF regarding the “opacity” swirling around the Wayanad Congress rehabilitation fund collection by calling on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) to explain what action the party had taken against leaders who were “sucking” funds collected on behalf of the party’s martyrs’ families. “In Payyanur (Kannur), Idukki and Thiruvananthapuram, the CPI(M) sacked party workers who questioned the well-entrenched fraud that has become a pattern in the CPI(M),” he added.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has repeatedly sought to draw attention to the controversy in his campaign speeches and has called on the AICC to reveal the whereabouts of the funds and their use. Mr Vijayan urged voters to decide the course the next government should take on the alleged embezzlement, making the dispute an emotional poll issue, particularly in north Kerala. He also sought to bring up the fact that the LDF government had handed over 178 houses to the dispossessed families and said that the construction of the rest was going on fast.
Recently, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) set up shanties in the area earmarked by the Congress for the construction of the proposed township to highlight the “unfulfilled promises of the opposition”.
Citing an RTI reply, PI(M) District Secretary Wayanad K. Rafeek accused the Congress of not even filing an application with the local village authority to build the promised township on the 3.5-acre plot. The Congress and the CPI(M) also fought over whether Kerala should include the cash donated by the Karnataka and Telangana governments for rehabilitation at the opposition’s expense.
Published – April 4, 2026 11:49 AM IST
