THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ISRO's current chairman S Somanath railed against former ISRO chairman K Sivan on Saturday. According to Somanath, K Sivan employed devious means to stop him from becoming the ISRO chairman. The accusations come in Somanath’s autobiography “ Nilavu kudicha Simhangal” " In this book, the current ISRO chairman also sheds light on the major flubs that happened in the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

'When the chairman changed in 2018, my name was on the list along with K Sivan, who was still in extension after the age of 60. I thought it was my turn to become the new ISRO chief, but Sivan was selected breaking all odds. Albeit being selected as the new chairman of ISRO, K Sivan continued to remain as the director of VSSC. If followed merit, the director post should have been for me, so I enquired about this with Sivan directly. He was reluctant to answer and evaded every time. Later I got the director post only because of the crucial intervention from former VSSC director B N Suresh” revealed Somanath.

"Sivan tried to extend his tenure as chairman instead of retiring after three years. When it was time to choose the next chairman, shrewdly enough, the director of U R Rao Satellite Centre was brought to the space commission, just to give me a hint about the chairman post slipping yet again from me.”

At the same time, Somanath reveals that the reason for the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was the hasty launch without conducting adequate tests and reviews.