By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala state secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Monday tried to brush off veteran communist V.S. Achuthanandan’s reported demand for his removal from the party post, terming it a media creation.
On Sunday, political circles were abuzz with reports that Achuthanandan has shot off a letter to party general secretary Prakash Karat demanding that rival Vijayan be removed from the post and himself offered to step down as Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, so as to enable a complete overhaul of the party organisation in the state.
Vijayan told reporters that the so-called contents of the letter being discussed in the media are nothing but a creation of the media.
Achuthanandan Monday acknowledged that he has sent the letter.
“Yes, I have sent the letter,” Achuthanandan told reporters at Alappuzha here, but refused to divulge the contents.
Karat, through a press release in Delhi, has also said he is in possession of the letter.
Achuthanandan’s letter also mentions that he has proposed the name of the recently nominated politburo member and former education minister M.A. Baby as the new state party secretary and also named former home minister and politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan as the new Leader of Opposition.
Achuthanandan and Vijayan for the past one decade have been engaged in a war of words but it was the latter who always had the last laugh. At the recently concluded 20th CPI-M party congress, Achuthanandan did not find a place in the politburo.
Achuthanandan decided to up his fight against Vijayan ever since T.P. Chandrasekharan, a former party colleague, was brutally murdered early this month.
It was only Achuthanandan among the top brass of his party who turned up to pay homage to Chandrasekharan.
At least 14 people have been identified as suspects. Six of them are CPI M members.
To make matters worse, Achuthanandan Sunday evening called up Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Home Minister T. Radhakrishnan to request that the ongoing probe in the murder case should not fizzle out and the conspirators should be brought before law.