Kerala CM has to come clean on data transfer: Congress

Leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala attacked Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over the handling of data of Covid-19 suspects to US-based PR and marketing firm Sprinklr.

Thiruvananthapuram: Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday, asked Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to break his silence and come clean on the handing over of data of Covid-19 suspects to US-based PR and marketing firm Sprinklr.

"This deal is a fraudulent one and has no concurrence of either the health, IT or local self government departments. Vijayan is beating around the bush and when asked he sulks. He should now say, if he has had any discussion with this firm. At the moment, I will stop here and will come back with more details later. Let us first hear from him," said Chennithala.

Chennithala had first raised this issue last week and then Vijayan said the company belongs to a Keralite and he came forward with the offer to help and the state government is not paying anything to this company, while even the WHO is using this data and later he said, he does not have time to waste on these issues.

"The agreement that has now been put out on the website, is one which is nothing but emails that are sent back and forth, after I raised it - the dates are clear. Vijayan said it's for free, but the agreements now show, it will be priced after Covid-19. So the biggest bluff has now been exposed. The IT Secretary M. Sivasankar, the man behind this deal has to be moved out and a proper probe be launched, as this is one big corrupt deal and was done under the cover of Covid-19 events here," said Chennithala.

State Congress president Mullapally Ramachandran wanted the politburo of the CPI-M to come out with their views on this, as they often speak about data privacy and all such things.

"They always go hammer and tongs on issues like this and it peaks if a US firm is involved. In this deal, all would like to know what their views are. Vijayan is no Communist, he is a crony capitalist," said Ramachandran.

(IANS REPORT)