THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Prejit Chandran, son of late state Congress treasurer V Prathapachandran, approached chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday and filed a complaint demanding action on his father’s death. Prejit had on Tuesday approached state Congress president K Sudhakaran seeking a party probe on what led to his father’s death. However Sudhakaran declined to help him, which led to a war of words between them. It’s in this backdrop that Prejit approached the chief minister.
Prathapachandran died on December 20 in his sleep apparently of a heart attack. His children Prejit, who works as the country head of a multinational aerospace company in Bengaluru and Preethi, who is based in Germany, had met DGP Anil Kant at his office on December 29 seeking a probe. Their grievance was that Prathapachandran had died due to stress. They said he was under tremendous stress after he confronted few of his party colleagues on the Congress Unit Committee formation.
However due to pressure from within the party including Sudhakaran, Prejit was hesitant to give statement to Vanchiyoor Police. Prajith told TNIE that he was hoping to get justice from the Congress party president Sudhakaran, but to no avail.
“I called on Sudhakaran at his house on Tuesday. The meeting did not turn out well. Sudhakaran was more interested in protecting his coterie comprising G S Babu, state Congress general secretary in-charge of Indira Bhavan, CUC workers from Kozhikode, Ramesh Kavil and Pramod Kottapally, Indira Bhavan office secretary B Chandrasekhara Unnithan and accountant Sanub”, said Prajith.
In their email complaint to the CM, Prejit and Preethi alleged mystery behind their father’s death. As per the email complaint a copy of which is with TNIE, Prathapachandran’s death was not natural but due to severe mental torture and malicious public campaign against him. Despite efforts, Sudhakaran remained incommunicado as he has been busy attending party programmes in Kannur. Meanwhile G S Babu vehemently denied the allegations raised by Prejit. He told TNIE that Prathapachandran was not stressed and was very cheerful.
“I’m not aware about the altercation between Sudhakaran and Prejit. It’s really unfortunate that Prejit is raising baseless allegations against the party and its leaders. Prathapan was very happy during his last days as the party could close the pending liabilities of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies, Neyyar Dam amounting to few crores. There is someone behind the curtain who is making Prejit do all these things,” said Babu.
AT A GLANCE
As per Prejit and Preethi’s email complaint to the CM, Prathapachandran’s death was not natural but due to severe mental torture and malicious public campaign against him