K. Muraleedharan, MLA, has responded to the controversy triggered by KPCC president M.M. Hassan’s remark expressing ‘regret’ over his involvement in the effort to oust former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran after the ISRO espionage scandal, by claiming that “those who were close to his father too had worked against him.”
Mr. Muraleedharan was here on Tuesday to inaugurate an event commemorating the birth anniversary of Karunakaran.
The Congress leader said that mediapersons had been seeking his response to Mr. Hassan’s statement, but he chose to remain silent. “Some people even hinted that I was keeping mum as I was eyeing some posts. Forget new posts, the efforts in the party now are to push me to the back row. I remained silent because there is no point in discussing the ISRO scandal now. It was not the only case cooked up against Karunakaran either,” he said.
Mr. Muraleedharan said the first sensational case against his father was related to the murder of the manager of Thattil estate in Thrissur, in which he was exonerated later. In the Rajan case, though he was misled by the police, Karunakaran had to resign following adverse remarks by the court. Another cooked up controversy was over the import of palm oil to the State.
“The ISRO case was only one among such cases. If you research more into the ISRO case, we may have to start a ‘Padayorukkam’ against people in our own party, not those in the BJP or the CPI(M),” he said.
Mr. Muraleedharan alleged that many leaders in the party had played a major role in manufacturing that scandal. “They included those who were close to Karunakaran, those who ate from his platter,” he said. The Congress leader pointed out that it was fruitless to discuss these issues now and the challenge before the party was to strengthen the organisation to help it come back to power at the Centre and the State.
