JOIN USVeteran CPM leader V S Achuthanandan on Thursday said he was sorry that he violated party discipline by openly taking a different stance on Kudankulam issue but the former Kerala chief minister asserted he would speak up whenever he feels that something is wrong.
Achuthanandan had also publicly expressed views that were at variance with the position of his party on the murder of former CPM leader T P Chandrasekheran.
On Thursday, Achuthanandan said he regretted those statements. “I also regret comparing state CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan with S A Dange,” he said. Dange was a founder member of the then Communist Party of India and wrote letters to the then colonial government offering to cooperate with Britain against Germany in World War II.
“The central committee and the state unit of the party wanted me to make an open admission of the stand that I took against the official stand of the party, and, therefore, I am doing this. But I wish to make it clear that I will speak out again when I feel there is something wrong, that’s for certain,” said Achuthanandan to reporters at a very crowded press conference here at his official residence. Achuthanandan was on his way to Kudankulam last month but returned after Tamil Nadu Police stopped him at the entry point of the state near here.
He said he wished to express solidarity with protestors at Kudankulam who are up in arms against the nuclear power plant. “Yes, I should not have gone there because the stand of my party was different. I admit what I did was not right,” Achuthanandan said.
Achuthanandan also said that his visit to the widow of Chandrasekheran on June 2, when the crucial Neyattinkara by-election took place, was not the right thing to do.