Kerala ignored; BJP calls statewide stir

Pioneer News Service/ Kochi

Protesting against the negligence shown by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Budget presented in Parliament on Tuesday, the State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party called for a State-wide hartal on Thursday.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Tuesday, BJP State president PS Sreedharan Pillai said with the Railway and the Union budgets, Kerala had become the most neglected State in the country.

“No other government has ignored Kerala like this. So serious is the negligence shown by the UPA Government to the State. All the 29 MPs from the State have become people who support any Central Government move,” the BJP leader alleged.

Mr Pillai said both the LDF and UDF had lost capability to react.

Even though there was not even a single member to advocate Kerala’s case, the Vajpayee government had allocated Rs108 crore for the development of the State in its first budget. And in the two following budgets, the NDA Government had raised the allocation for the State to Rs 228 crore and Rs 444 crore respectively, Mr Pillai claimed.

According to the BJP State chief, Rs129 crore, the present budgetary allocation to the State was only nominal and would not have any significance. The first budget of the UPA Government had allocated Rs 229 crore for the State, he claimed.

Continuing his diatribe on the Manmohan Singh Government, the BJP State president alleged that in the Railway budget, Kerala was ignored as never before.

“The UPA Government has shown a most vindictive approach regarding the allotment of new trains and over-bridges in the Railway budget for Kerala,” Mr Pillai told the reporters.

Sharply criticising the alleged negligence of Kerala by the Union Government, Mr Pillai said in the budget, not even a single new institution or development project had been allotted for the State.

“The budget has not mentioned the much hyped Kochi metro project, while the recently proposed Hyderabad metro project of Andhra Pradesh has gained necessary attention,” he said.

The State failed to have any of the new projects like the coastal area electrification project and the seven new highways. No amount had been allocated for Vizhinjam project and the Prime Minister’s special package for the State, alleged the BJP leader.