CPI(M) Politburo rejects VS's stand on Chandrasekharan case

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 8: The CPI(M) central leadership today categorically rejected party veteran V S Achuthanandan's stand supporting a CBI probe into the 'conspiracy' behind murder of RMP leader TP Chandrasekharan, contradicting the party's official position on the issue.

"No need for a CBI probe. Judicial verdict in the case has come. This is our party stand," CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said in Delhi. CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan also denounced the nonagenarian leader's position on the matter, saying that what he had demanded in the letter was not the party's line.

Causing deep embarrassment to the party,Achuthanandan had yesterday written to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, supporting a CBI probe into the murder case,over which the slain leader's wife K K Rema had gone on fast, which she called off after the UDF government accepted her demand in principle. Though CPI(M) leaders initially sought to play it down by casting doubts about the authenticity of such a letter, Achuthanandan himself confirmed having written it, putting the party in a bind.

"Yes I did write a letter... Let the party discuss it," was how Achuthanandan responded when reporters confronted him with the question whether his act did not amount to breach of party discipline. Earlier also, the difference between Achuthanandan and the CPI(M) state unit controlled by Vijayan on the issue had come to the fore.

A CPI(M) rebel, who floated a parallel Left outfit called Revolutionary Marxist Party in his home turf Onchiyam in north Kerala, Chandrasekharan was hacked to death in May 2012. Last month, a special court sentenced 11 persons, three of them local CPI(M) functionaries, to life imprisonment. Rema had alleged that CPI(M) bigwigs were involved in the conspiracy to murder Chandrasekheran. CPI(M) had held that ordering a fresh probe would be illegal and politically motivated.

PTI