Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan has accused Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and the former Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan of having failed to offer protection to slain Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T.P. Chandrasekharan.
Participating in a meet-the-press programme organised by the Press Club here on Saturday, Mr. Achuthanandan said the United Democratic Front (UDF) government had not given Chandrasekharan protection despite his seeking it in writing. “The persons who had abetted Chandrasekharan’s killing are now expressing deep sorrow about it,” he said.
Mr. Achuthanandan justified his complete acceptance of the findings of the party-appointed inquiry commission, and said the inquiry was initiated on the basis of several complaints and letters that he had sent to the party leadership.
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Once the inquiry report came, party general secretary Prakash Karat informed party State unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan that K.C. Ramachandran was responsible for the murder, and that he should be expelled from the party. “It is not our party’s practice to kill our colleagues. Which other party would take such an action?” he said.
Asked whether he still stood by his demand that there should be a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the conspiracy angle of the murder, the Leader of the Opposition said the CBI investigation could go on.
He had written a letter seeking a National Investigation Agency investigation because Faiz (currently in custody in connection with gold smuggling) had visited the accused in the Chandrasekharan murder case in prison. There were also reports that witnesses were being intimidated, and some had been bought over. All this had happened under Oommen Chandy’s rule, he said.
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On his negative response to acquittal of Mr. Vijayan and others in the SNC-Lavalin case, Mr. Achuthanandan said he had both ‘congratulated’ (him) and said that there were higher courts. “I will express my difference of opinion and go to the maximum extent to get an answer,” he said.
As someone who had joined the Communist Party in 1940 without expecting any position or power and suffered much at the hands of the police, he never expressed his views for power or position, Mr. Achuthanandan said.
He saw nothing wrong in the Left Democratic Front’s decision to field Independents in the polls. This was something that the party had done way back in 1957, he said. In 1957, the party had fielded as many as seven independents.