CPM evasive over Achutha ‘rebellion’

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Senior leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference Shabir Ahmad Shah and Nayeem Ahmad Khan, during a scuffle at a seminar

Senior Kerala CPI(M) leader V.S. Achuthanandan said with the state leadership refusing to act on the gruesome murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan, there was no point in his continuing in the Opposition leader’s post. Political ethics did not allow him to support such murders, he is said to have mentioned in his letter to party general secretary Prakash Karat.
The letter accuses the state leadership of failing miserably to handle the aftermath of the murder. Worse, the party leaders seemed to support the killers.
It was only on Saturday that the state secretary, Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, and leaders from Kannur said that the party will erupt into a fireball if the police hounded the party and arrested its activists claiming that they were accused in the murder.
After the murder of Chandrasekharan, Mr Achuthanandan had said that the state leadership should not have let Chandrasekharan and his followers leave the party. Instead, it should have looked into the issues they had raised and resolved them and earned the trust of these people. He is said to have repeated this in his letter to the Central leaders.
He has also demanded that both the state and the Central committee should be convened at the earliest, or else face the threat of further erosion. However, indications from the leadership are that any move will be taken only after the Neyyattinkara byelection.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) Central leadership on Sunday distanced themselves from the letter sent to them by Mr Achuthanandan.
Senior CPI(M) leaders Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and S. Ramachandran Pillai said that they were “not aware” of any such letter, while the party’s general secretary Prakash Karat was not available for comment.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) Kerala state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday night dubbed as “media creation” reports that Mr Achuthananandan, through the letter, had sought recast of the state party-set up.