In the run-up to the Assembly elections, a former aide of Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan is hurriedly releasing a book portraying him as a “tragic failure”.
In Chuvanna Adayalangal, which is to be released on Tuesday, K.M. Shajahan, who was once Mr Achuthanandan’s private secretary, charts the Chief Minister’s struggles against corruption and immorality and his final “submission” to the party leadership.
“It’s a history of the party... its leader VS standing up to ‘correct’ the leadership, and finally submitting himself to his detractors in the party,” says Mr Shajahan.
The book traces the struggles that Mr Achuthanandan led as the Opposition leader and includes the letters he wrote to the CPI(M) politburo against the state party leadership led by his rival Pinarayi Vijayan, the state secretary.
Chuvanna Adayalangal details how Mr Achuthanandan joined K. Ajitha, the one-time firebrand Naxalite, to target Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader P.K. Kunhalikutty, who is said to be allegedly involved in the ice-cream parlour sex case.
The book also recounts how Mr Achuthanandan brought out instances of forest encroachments in the Idukki district and how he carried out a host of single-handed battles against corruption in high places.
However, the Chief Minister’s former aide bemoans that there have been very few flashes of this once raging fire after Mr Achuthanandan assumed office as Chief Minister.
Mr Shajahan says that Mr Achuthanandan could not make good on his promise of making sure that the guilty in sex scandals are brought to book and be paraded, nor could he take action in other issues that he had undertaken as the Opposition leader.
“He compromised when he became Chief Minister and is creating an impression that the party is to be blamed, which is totally unfair,” says the former aide in the book.
Mr Shajahan was expelled from the CPI(M) in 2006 by the official group for attempting to promote factional feud and is still sore that Mr Achuthanandan did not help him. This is perhaps his way of getting even.