Thiruvananthapuram, Friday, 28 October 2011: The Forest Minister K B Ganesh Kumar today tendered an apology for his unruly comments against Opposition party leader and CPM stalwart VS Achuthanandan.

Minister while addressing a press meet opined that he profusely regretted for his comments against the CPM veteran. He said, for a moment, suppressed feelings got better of him as Achuthanandan had been haunting his father and Kerala Congress (B) leader R Balakrishna Pillai (now serving sentence in a corruption case) for the last 18 years.

Forest Minister K B Ganesh Kumar on Thursday night came under attack from CPI (M) and its affiliated outfits for making allegedly derogatory remarks against former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan.

The party’s youth and student outfits DYFI and SFI came out strongly against Kumar for his unsavoury comments against Achuthanandan at a public meeting organised by his party Kerala Congress(B) at Pathanapuram in Kollam district.

They said the minister would have to face ’serious consequences’ if he refused to withdraw his fulminations against the 88-year-old leader.
They also took out a protest march at Pathanapuram, Ganesh Kumar’s Assembly seat.

In many other parts of the state, DYFI and SFI workers took out protest marches against Kumar’s remarks.

CPI(M) women’s wing All India Democratic Women’s Association demanded that the Chief Minister drop Kumar from
the cabinet in view of his ‘uncultured attack’ on the former chief minister.

Taking exception to the language used by Kumar, senior CPI(M) leader M A Baby said this was quite unbecoming of a public figure and unheard of in Kerala’s tradition of cultured public debate.

(news agency inputs)