KOCHI: A Congress MLA has kicked off a fresh new row by claiming that the Kerala State Education Minister and CPM leader C Raveendranath has a history in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak dal. In a Facebook post, Congress MLA from Wadakkancherry, Anil Akkara even submitted a nomination for the post of chairman of the students union at a college ass a RSS-student wing ABVP candidate.
“During his childhood, he was a member of the Cheranallur RSS shakha. During his student years at the St Thomas College in Thrissur, where former CM EMS Namboodiripad also studied, he submitted nomination for the chairman post as a candidate of the ABVP. If all this is true, what's left to see?” he wrote. The allegations come at a time when there are several assertions that the education wing of the RSS distributed several books in schools, with incorrect historical facts. Another controversy also grew when a circular was sent from the Centre asking schools in the state to celebrate the birth centenary of Jan Sangh leader Deen Dayal Upadhyay.
Three-time MLA from Pudukkad, Thrissur, Raveendranath is a first-timer in the cabinet headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The government website describes him as a retired chemistry professor at the St Thomas College. The minister has meanwhile, rejected the allegations as baseless and factually incorrect. He also said that he was at no point connected with ABVP.
