Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, March 18 (IANS) The Janata Dal (S) faction of the ruling Left alliance Thursday termed as “irresponsible” a remark by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan about state Transport Minister Jose Thettayil.
At a Left Democratic Front (LDF) meeting, Achuthanandan said that he feels that all is not well in the transport department and described the reports of transfers as not being according to the norms.

He also said that the department was not working as it was when Mathew T. Thomas was the minister.

JD (S) president, N.M. Joseph, told a TV channel Thursday night that he was not present at the meeting but what he heard from his party nominees who attended it indicated that the remark of Achuthanandan could have been avoided.

“We feel that he has behaved in an irresponsible manner. We are not a party that can be ridiculed like this. If he has any doubts about anything, what he should have done was to order an inquiry. It was unbecoming of Achuthanandan to speak like this at the LDF meeting,” said Joseph.

Thettayil is a first timer to the assembly and became a minister last August following a split in his party JD (S) which today has two factions.

One of the factions is led by M.P. Veerendra Kumar and the other faction is led by Joseph, to which Thettayil belongs.

The undivided JD(S) was part of the LDF for more than a quarter century, but the CPI-M during the May Lok Sabha elections put its foot down when it refused sitting Lok Sabha member Kumar the Kozhikode Lok Sabha seat.

Following that, Kumar asked his party nominee Thomas to quit the cabinet, which he did.

But Thomas and Thettayil refused to join Kumar when he moved over to the Congress-led United Democratic Front.