Now, it’s official. CPM Leader V S Achuthanandan will continue as the Opposition Leader in the State Assembly, announced CPM general secretary Prakash Karat after the Politburo meeting in New Delhi on Monday.
Karat said that a six-member panel has been appointed to examine some issues raised by the state leadership. The panel includes Karat, S Ramachandran Pillai, Sitaram Yechury, Nirupam Sen, V B Raghavalu and A K Padmanabhan, all PB members. Karat also made it clear that the Central Committee has approved the expulsion of VS’ aides K Balakrishnan, V K Sasidharan and A Suresh. “Once they are out of the party, they can’t continue as it was the party which appointed them and it is not a government job”, he said.
The fourth person to be expelled from the party is S P Sreedharan, former deputy general manager of ‘Deshabhimani’. A party panel had reported that the sexual abuse charge against CPM state committee member K Varadarajan was fabricated by Sreedharan.