Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 17 (IANS): A row between Kerala's Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel and Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala turned personal on Thursday with the former alleging foul play by the latter to fetch his son high marks in the Civil Service interview.

Chennithala has been going hammer and tongs against Jaleel after it surfaced that the Minister had allegedly violated basic rules in giving moderation marks to an engineering student at the Mahatma Gandhi University.

With documents surfacing putting Jaleel in the dock, he on Thursday levelled a personal allegation, without naming Chennithala, saying that journalists can go ahead and find out how a top Kerala political leader ensured his son got very high marks in the Civil Service interview.

"I will not say who the leader is, but I will say that his son who secured 210th rank in the examination in 2017, got 206 marks for the interview, when the first ranked person in the examination got 176 marks in the interview. This was managed by the political leader," said Jaleel.

In response, Chennithala told the media that the Minister does not even have elementary knowledge of Civil Service examinations take place, and he feels sorry for him.

"It was improper on the part of Jaleel to bring in people who are sitting at home. He has no clue of the civil service examination. But nevertheless, our attack on Jaleel's favouritism will go forward and it is high time that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan breaks his silence on what Jaleel has done," he said.