Top Kerala CPI leader quits party

Senior CPI leader P. Ramachandran Nair announced Saturday that he has quit the party as he is pained to see that certain vested interests have ganged up and taken it over.

"I am leaving the party after being with it for the past 48 years. I am pained to see that the party has now been hijacked by a group led by K.E. Ismail (former state revenue minister). The party has fallen from very lofty heights when stalwarts led it and now it has been reduced to just a shadow of what it was," said Nair while addressing reporters here.

Nair along with CPI legislative party leader C. Divakaran and its district secretary V. Sasi was demoted to lower committee soon after the Lok Sabha elections after irregularities were alleged in fielding a medical professional Bennet Abraham as party candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat.

"The decision to field Abraham was taken by state secretariat of the party despite objections being raised by many leaders. It was totally an injustice to put the blame on just the three of us for this," said Nair who was fielded by the party in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls here and also lost in the 2011 assembly polls at a constituency in the capital district.

Nair however said that he just cannot believe that the seat was given to Abraham for money.

"I am the third accused in the case filed with the Lok Ayukta. I am now going to file a petition before it demanding that all the details of the minutes of the meeting at which decision was taken to field Abraham be produced before the court," said Nair.

It was early this week that the Lok Ayukta ruled that the probe into the 'payment for Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat' complaint against the CPI can go forward and even the party secretary Paniyan Ravindran can be called for questioning.

"It's surprising to hear that Ravindran has decided to approach the Kerala High Court seeking stay on the Lok Ayukta directive. Is it not important that the truth over the allocation of seat to Abraham comes out," asked Nair.

But CPI assistant secretary Prakash Babu reacting to Nair's decision to quit the party said that nothing much needs to be said about Nair's decision.

"We don't expect anything better from a person who has quit the party. We feel that he wants to divert attention from the tough stand that our party has taken against state Finance Minister K.M. Mani who has been booked by the vigilance department in an alleged bribery case," said Babu to reporters here.