R. Balakrishna Pillai, chairman of the Kerala Congress (B), has said that mere statements against Forests Minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar will not suffice since the time has come to act against him.
Addressing a meet-the-press organised by the Kollam Press Club on Friday, Mr. Pillai said Mr. Ganesh Kumar had crossed all tolerable limits by insulting the Nair Service Society. “That has pained me a lot,” Mr. Pillai said adding that the NSS was not a community organisation.
The course of action to be taken against Mr. Ganesh Kumar would be decided by the State executive committee meeting of the party to be held in Kozhikode on May 13.
“Mr. Ganesh Kumar's claim that he had come to see me in jail to seek my blessings before taking oath as Minister is a blatant lie.” He came after taking oath to complain that a no good portfolio had been allocated to him. If he was not satisfied with his portfolio, he could hand over the same to the Chief Minister and remain a Minister without portfolio, Mr. Pillai said.
CPI(M) criticised
He said that the use of the term ‘kulamkuthi' by CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in connection with the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan was not right. But the problem with the CPI(M) was that true ‘kulamkuthis' were reigning within the party and it was unable to do anything about it, Mr. Pillai alleged.
“In the past I was active in the Communist Party of India and can say with confidence that no communist will dare to counter a statement made by the party secretary. If someone dares that person will not be there in the party. But now the CPI(M) leader V.S. Achuthanandan has countered Mr. Vijayan's statement about Chandrasekharan and the party is keeping quiet,” he said.
Mr. Pillai said ‘kulamkuthis' were there in all political parties and in the KC(B) too there were such persons. Mr. Chandrasekharan's was a very brutal murder. The police investigations into it were only progressing and so far it had not been found that the CPI(M) had a role in it. “At this stage I would not like to comment on who is behind the murder,” he said.
Mr. Pillai registered strong protest against the move to set up a distillery at Muthalamada. He said it violated the liquor policy adopted by the United Democratic Front. It appeared a mystery why the government had failed to go in appeal against a single bench decision of the High Court in this connection, he said and called for a probe into the manner in which the government handled the issue.
