Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 4 (IANS) For the third successive day Tuesday, the Kerala assembly witnessed ruckus as the Left opposition accused Chief Minister Oommen Chandy of flouting rules and speaking to a jailed United Democratic Front leader by phone.

The jailed leader, R. Balakrishna Pillai, has denied the allegation vehemently.

Like in the past two days, the opposition benches were up in arms after Speaker G. Karthikeyan denied them permission for an adjournment motion to discuss the issue and went through the listed business of the house and adjourned it for the day.

The alleged telephone talk between Pillai and Chandy has plunged the assembly in chaos since school teacher Krishna Kumar was bodily harmed with an iron rod a week back. The incident became news and the opposition has been accusing Pillai of being behind the attack.

Since Monday, TV channels have been showing Pillai, sentenced to a year’s imprisonment in a corruption case by the apex court, speaking by phone to people in the government and also to Chandy.

“The chief minister is doing a real wrong thing by speaking to people in jail and only a judicial probe will reveal the truth in the telephone case,” said Leader of Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan of the Communist Party of India-Marxist to reporters soon after the speaker wound up the day’s business in a flash.

Chandy, however, has denied any such thing ever took place.

“I challenge the opposition to prove that Pillai spoke to me. It is true that a call has come to my private secretary’s number from the mobile which is said to belong to Pillai, but at that time I was miles away from the said mobile phone. At the appropriate time, when they raise the next allegation why Pillai spoke to my secretary, I will reply to that,” said Chandy.

The gruesome incident took place Sep 27 night, when Kumar was found in a badly injured state near Kottarakara, around 70 km from here. Highway police first took him to a local hospital there and he was later moved to the Medical College Hospital here as his condition was serious.

Both Kumar and his wife K.R. Geetha work in the school that is managed and run by Pillai and for long the teacher couple has had a running feud with Pillai.