Achuthanandan counters M Mukundan for calling him "outdated"

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 12 (UNI) Countering noted Malayalam writer M Mukundan's reported remarks against him that he was an ''outdated saint,'' Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan today admitted that he belonged to an ''old-fashioned school of Communist thought''.

Responding to questions at a post-cabinet briefing, he read out from a prepared statement saying ''it is true that I am 85-years-old and belongs to the old school of thought based on an ideology that began in 1848.'' Mr Achuthanandan said he was proud to belong to that old school because he was also old.

The CPI(M) Politburo member said even when Karl Marx lived, the capitalists time and again had said that Communists were old- fashioned.

Writer Mukundan, who is also the President of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, in an interview to a magazine last week had called the Chief Minister ''old-fashioned'' and said that the state needed leaders like CPI(M) State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

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