VS, Pinarayi hit out at Rahul Gandhi

Marxist veteran V S Achutanandan and politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan today hit out at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi over his remark that CPI(M) should explain their stand on liquor policy. Taking a dig at Gandhi, Achuthanandan, the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, said Rahul should inquire about what had happened to liquor ban in some northern states, under Congress rule,before asking CPI(M) about its policy. "There is no need for Rahul Gandhi to come to Kerala, hiring a flight, to ask CPI(M) about our liquor policy. He could have made a call to party Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and ask him about it," the nonagenarian leader said in a sarcastic remark.

The former chief minister also said people of the state had always given befitting reply to those who had mocked at CPI(M) and the Left in the past.
Achuthanandan had called Rahul Gandhi an 'amul baby' during the last assembly election campaign when Rahul remarked that elderly persons should retire from politics targeting the veteran, who was spearheading the Left campaign then. Pinarayi Vijayan also criticised Gandhi. "It was Rahul Gandhi who should answer about the liquor policy of the Congress which had revoked the prohibition in Mizoram and Manipur before asking our liquor policy," he said. Gandhi, who was here last week to inaugurate the political yatra led by KPCC president V M Sudheeran, had asked CPI(M) to explain its position on the liquor policy. His remark came in the background of UDF government's new liquor policy, that closed down 700 odd bars and permitted to serve foreign liquor only through five star category bars.