Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MLA K. Muraleedharan has said that his father K. Karunakaran had to step down as chief minister following trumped charges in the ISRO espionage case. He was responding to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s statement recently that Karunakaran’s resignation was not on account of the ISRO scam.
Mr Muraleedharan told reporters at the MLA quarters here that after the espionage case came to light, many allies in the UDF started turning against Karunakaran.
He alleged that former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao had a personal grudge against his father.
“When the ISRO issue cropped up, Rao just capitalised on the situation to oust Karunakaran,” said Mr Muraleedharan.
Mr Chandy was the finance minister in the Karunakaran ministry then. After Mr Chandy made the statement, Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal had commented that only Mr Chandy knew the true facts regarding the espionage case. Mr Muraleedharan waited till the polling got over to comment on the statement.
