lambasting Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan for ‘branding’ him as an RSS follower, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Wednesday said it was during the left rule that two Government employees had been dismissed from service for indulging in their creative pursuits.
Chandy said he had only tried to bring in more clarity to the existing order, which mandates that prior permission should be taken by employees for pursuing artistic endeavours. The controverial order was frozen on November 23 after it created a furore.
The CPI(M) leader had hit out at the Chief Minister, alleging that by issuing the order, Chandy had proved that he was a follower of the RSS. Chandy said he had only tried to bring in more clarity to an order that was in existence since 1960. “If I had agreed to the findings in that file and just signed it, then it would have been what Kerala had witnessed in the five year rule of lDF and I would not have been branded as an RSS man,” Chandy told reporters here.
However, since he had disagreed and tried to improve things, Chandy said he had been dubbed an ‘RSS man’.
“It is only to bring more clarity in the already existing conditions with regard to the creative activities of the government employees that the order was issued,” he said.
Chandy said cartoonist PK Manthri, a Government employee was suspended by the EMS Namboodripad government in 1969 for his cartoons lampooning the government and VG Menon, a scientist, was sacked from the post of ANERT director for penning an aritcle criticising the lDF Government.