Attacks ruling Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M) for looting the state and laments that a climate of political untouchability is still prevalent in Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram : Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at Kochi on Monday on his first visit to the southern state of Kerala after assuming office amid protests against keeping Chief Minister Oommen Chandy away from his function at Kollam on Tuesday.
Youth Congress workers greeted Modi with black flags when he arrived at the naval airbase around 4 pm. The youth wing of the Congress also staged protests across the state terming the cancellation of the invitation extended to Chandy to preside over the function being held at SN College at Kollam to unveil the statue of former state chief minister R Shankar as an insult to Kerala.
Cutting across party lines, MPs from the state also joined the protests by walking out of the Lok Sabha. The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) will be staging a prayer protest in front of Shankar”s statue in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. Despite the protests, the state gave an official welcome to the PM. Apart from the chief minister, Governor P Sathashivam, Fisheries Minister K Babu, Kochi Mayor Soumini Jain, Ernakulam M P K V Thomas, MLA Hibi Eden and chief secretary Jiji Thomson turned up at the airbase to receive the PM.
Modi did not refer to the controversy when he addressed his party workers at Thrissur an hour after his arrival. His focus was on the untouchability and the atrocities his party and its ideology faced in the state. He said that over 200 party workers had laid their lives for the party in the last 50 years.
Referring to the dominance of the two rival fronts in Kerala for decades, Modi said in a state where social reformers like Sree Narayana Guru had fought and removed social untouchability, a climate of political untouchability is still prevalent in Kerala.
“This untouchability is carried to such lengths and those opposed to their political ideology are harassed and sometimes physically eliminated. Their (fronts’) thinking process is such,” he said.
“BJP has been at the receiving end of political untouchability in Kerala from other parties. However, the people in the state have made up their mind now. They have accepted the party whole-heartedly”, Modi said citing the victories the BJP got in the local body elections in several pockets in the state.
He said that the people who were frustrated with the two dominant fronts led by the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) were ready to give a chance to the BJP when the state goes to polls four months later to elect a new government.
The Prime Minister said that Kerala was better placed to take advantage of several programmes he has initiated at the Centre. With a well-educated human resource, the state can lead the ”Digital India” project.
Keralites, who are now forced to go out of the country for jobs, will be able to find jobs in the country once this and other projects move ahead. India is a young nation. We want youth to get opportunities and that too in India, he added.
Modi promised a better deal to the rubber growers reeling under a decline in the price. He said the government will arrest further decline of the commodity by increasing the import duty on natural rubber.
