CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Friday went into denial mode about an internal inquiry report of his party’s Kerala unit indicting senior leader V.S. Achuthanandan. The report submitted by central committee member P. Karunakaran accused Mr Achuthanandan of interfering in the Lavalin probe and trying to build the case against his bête noire and party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Even though Mr Achuthanandan had already reacted to the report saying that people of the state will “reject it with contempt”, Mr Karat and the party’s central leadership denied that such a report existed.
“There is no (such) report,” Mr Karat told mediapersons. He, however, avoided all other questions posed by them.
The party’s central leadership was clearly in a fix as the new report came within less than a week after the party’s central committee, which met in Kolkata from January 17 to 19, sought to buy more time to take a decision on the state unit’s another report against Mr Achuthanandan.
“It is all speculation. There is no such report,” asserted party’s politburo member from Kerala S. Ramachandran Pillai. “If the central committee receives reports from its state units, it will discuss it and media will be duly informed if found necessary,” he told this newspaper.
The party’s internal inquiry reportedly found that Mr Achuthanandan had interfered with the probe into the SNC Lavalin case.