As the campaign heat continued to soar in Kerala with more candidates filing nominations for the May 16 Assembly elections, Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday threatened to initiate legal action against Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan for the “baseless” allegations the latter had leveled against him.
However, Achuthanandan said he did not take Chandy’s threat seriously as he was in the grip of fear of poll defeat but State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the Opposition leader would deal with any case the Chief Minister was planning to initiate in the court.
Also, rejecting the CPI(M)’s charge that he had joined hands with RSS-BJP in the current election, Chandy mounted a furious attack on the Marxists saying that it was they who had a history of striking alliance with the RSS from the Emergency days.
Serving an ultimatum on Achuthanandan, Chandy said in Kozhikode that he would initiate legal action against Achuthanandan if he did not withdraw the allegations he had leveled against him and apologised in two days. Achuthanandan had irked Chandy two days ago with the charge that he was an accused in 31 cases of corruption.
“The allegations VS is leveling against me are baseless. The only weapons the Opposition has got in this election are false allegations. If he doesn’t withdraw these allegations and tender apology, (I) will take legal action against him. I am also thinking of approaching the Election Commission,” Chandy said in Kozhikode.
In the campaign speech he gave two days ago at Dharmadom, Kannur where Pinarayi is the CPI(M) candidate, Achuthanandan had alleged that the entire Chandy Cabinet was neck-deep in corruption. He said that Chandy himself was facing 31 corruption cases and that the total number of graft cases against the members of his Cabinet was 136.
“Allegations are bound to come up during campaigning for elections. If VS makes charges that cannot be substantiated, he has to face its aftereffects also,” the Chief Minister said. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala also asked Achuthanandan to withdraw his allegations against the Cabinet members and apologise.
According to Chandy, no case existed anywhere against him or any of his colleagues in the Cabinet. Any case originated with an FIR but there was no FIR anywhere against any member of his Cabinet, Chandy claimed, challenging Achuthanandan to produce even a single FIR registered against him or any Minister.
“Don’t take it seriously,” said Achuthanandan about Chandy’s warning. “He is saying such things because even he knows that the left is going to win the polls,” he added. Kodiyeri said that Chandy’s threat was part of his efforts to protect himself and his Cabinet colleagues accused of corruption.
Chandy unleashed a furious attack against the CPI(M) over Politbureau member Pinarayi Vijayan’s allegation that he had sought the help of BJP-RSS for the election by asking the Marxists to furnish evidences for any such conspiracy. He said Pinarayi was raising this allegation for attracting minority voters.
“The Marxist party has a history of striking alliance with the RSS-BJP. They had formed an alliance with the earlier Avatar of BJP for the 1977 election on the pretext of opposing Emergency. That was an election which gave the biggest majority to the Congress-led UDF in Kerala - 111 seats out of 140. But they did not learn any lesson from it,” Chandy said.
“Everyone knows how the left had joined hands with the BJP to oust Rajiv Gandhi. Then they cooperated with the BJP to oppose the UPA over the issue of the nuclear agreement. Most recently, they tried to split the secular votes in the Bihar election. The Marxists should know that such charges would only lead them into a trap,” the Chief Minister added.
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan reacted promptly to Chandy’s charges with a statement in which he said the association the left had formed against Emergency was not with the Jan Sangh as Chandy had said but it was with the Janata Party of Jayaprakash Narayan. He said Chandy was trying to spread lies out of fear of defeat.
The CPI(M) leader also reminded Chandy of how a section in the Congress had left it and joined hands with the left front in Kerala after Emergency. “Nobody can deny the fact that Chandy himself was in that section. He is trying to challenge the memory of the people by hiding facts,” Kodiyeri added.