Congress today slammed Kerala chief minister and Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan for his adverse remarks against former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and demanded an unqualified apology from him for making "cruel and absurd" allegations against the late leader.
Talking to reporters here, KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala said Achuthanandan's allegation that Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for the anti-Sikh riots in 1985 was totally baseless as the late leader was at that time mourning the assassination of his mother Indira Gandhi.
"It is not surprising that Achuthanandan will not hesitate to tell lies as he was a leader who ran away from Punnapra-Vayalar uprising spearheaded by the communists in 1940s after throwing the rank and file to the mercy of the soldiers of the Travancore royal administration", the Congress leader said.
"Rajiv Gandhi was a leader who sacrificed his life for the nation. When the anti-Sikh riots broke out in New Delhi, Rajiv had called upon the party functionaries to go to the riot-hit areas for restoration of peace", he said adding, as NSU-I president then, he knew this personally.
Achuthanandan's allegation that Rajiv allowed former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to escape the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy was also utterly baseless, he said.
While addressing a party meeting at Thamarakkulam in Alappuzha district yesterday, Achuthanandan came down heavily on Rajiv Gandhi apparently provoked by Congress stalling the assembly porceedings on Friday last over his "inadvertent" comment in the House on the late leader.
Though Achuthanandan had clarified in the house itself that it was a 'slip of the tongue' as it was Sanjay Gandhi who he actually meant, Congress leaders took it as an affront to their leader.
Senior Congress leader and former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy said a man occupying the position of chief
minister should not have made such 'unsavoury comments' on a leader like Rajiv Gandhi, revered by millions in the country.
Meanwhile, Youth Congress activists burnt Achuthanandan's effigy in different parts of the state in protest against his remarks.
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