Foreign trip row: Kerala Guv Khan thanks media for informing that CM Vijayan is abroad

Thiruvananthapuram, May 11 (IANS) Even as the political slugfest over the Kerala Chief Minister’s three-nation private visit continues, Pinarayi Vijayan’s arch-rival Governor Arif Mohammed Khan waded into it on Saturday by thanking the media for the information that the CM was abroad.

Even as the Congress and the BJP slammed CM Vijayan for leaving quietly early this week, Governor Khan revealed that he also had no clue about the CM’s impending trip.

“Has he (CM Vijayan) gone on a foreign visit, I am not aware. Thanks to you (media) for informing me that the CM is on a foreign trip,” said Khan.

“In the past I had informed the President that the CM doesn’t inform me when he leaves,” said Khan.

However, the CPI(M) has defended the trip of the CM and his family to Indonesia, Singapore, and the UAE, saying it was a private trip funded by the CM and his family and not state-funded.

It was on Monday morning that the news surfaced that CM Vijayan had left on a three-nation trip with his wife and their grandson, while his daughter Veena Vijayan and her husband and state Tourism Minister PA Mohammed Riyas, will join them in Indonesia.

CM Vijayan and his family are expected to return to India on May 21.