Kerala CM hits back at detractors for 'outdated' slur

Thiruvananthapuram: Popular Malayalam novelist M. Mukundan's remarks about Kerala Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan that he was an "outdated saint" and generally not a man of the times, has earned a sharp retort from the 85-year-old chief minister.

In delivering his reaction to Mukundan's comment, political observers here feel that Achuthanandan had also targeted the faction within the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) that is loyal to the party's state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

Mukundan had commented that Pinarayi Vijayan was much more pragmatic than the octogenarian chief minister, which led to political sabre-rattling in Kerala, and a sharp rejoinder from the chief minister.

Achuthanandan used the criticism against him to launch his own attack against Mukundan, as well as his detractors within the CPM. Sarcastically stating that it was right to call him old-fashioned since he was 85 years old, he said capitalists had all along ridiculed Marxists thus.

He went on to say that his critics were those who believed in post-modernism with its emphasis on capitalism and globalisation, making it virtually clear that his rejoinder was aimed as much at his detractors in general as it was against Mukundan.