CPI-M Kerala Secretariat pulls up Achuthanandan

CPI-M state secretariat today flayed party veteran V S Achuthanandan for his stand on the vandalisation of P Krishna Pillai's memorial at Muhamma in Alappuzha district.
In a statement, the party secretariat said Achuthanandan was trying to glorify Lateesh Chandran, one of the five accused in the case.
Chandran is a former personal staff of Achuthanandan and had surrendered before the police investigating officer on December 22. The party suspended him after the incident.
Achuthanandan should not have glorified Chandran, who, according to the party, had harboured anti-party sentiments, the statement said.
Achuthanandan had earlier said traitors were behind the vandalisation of the memorial of Krishna Pillai, the founder-member of communist movement in the state.

He had said that he suspected the involvement of some other persons in the attack and party should not have taken action based on the police report.

The verbal sparring is widely seen as another bout of confrontation between the party and Achuthanandan, former chief minister of Kerala, who has frequently drawn the ire of a section in the party for his critical comments against the party's state leadership controlled by his bete-noire Pinarayi Vijayan.
Unidentified persons had in October 2013 set ablaze the memorial and vandalised the bust of Pillai, founder-secretary of the Communist Party in Kerala when it was formed in 1937.

Pillai died after being bitten by a snake on August 19, 1948 while he was hiding in a thatched hut of a farm worker at Muhamma in Alappuzha, which was later turned into a memorial.