KOCHI, Mar 11: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other ministers decided to stay away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official event in the state on Wednesday, following the alleged exclusion of the state’s PWD Minister P A Mohammed Riyas from the event.
The prime minister is scheduled to inaugurate various development projects, including the first stretch of the six-lane expansion of National Highway 66, during the official programme by 12.30 pm here.
The projects to be inaugurated include the Thalappady-Chengala stretch of NH 66 and the Vengalam-Ramanattukara stretch of the Kozhikode bypass, both upgraded to six lanes.
According to government sources, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan won’t attend the event, though his name is included in the programme schedule. However, no particular reason was cited for his decision to skip the event.
State Ministers M B Rajesh and K Krishnankutty, who have been invited to the PM’s event, also said they are not taking part because of personal reasons.
Reacting to the development, Minister Riyas said he had not received any official communication inviting him to the function and termed the move as “political” and “not befitting a democracy”.
Whoever had been the PWD ministers so far in the state, they all were invited to the inauguration of such projects so far, he said, adding that excluding anyone or insulting anyone by not inviting to the function would not erase the facts of how it became a reality from the minds of people.
He said the state government had played a key role in the National Highway development by facilitating land acquisition and sharing funds.
The PWD minister said the National Highway development project in the state was revived only after the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government came to power in 2016 following the intervention of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
He claimed that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had informed in writing that the project was being abandoned and had shut down its office related to it.
According to the minister, the project was later revived after the LDF government assumed office in 2016, with the CM taking the initiative to bring it back on track.
He further said that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and NHAI officials had on several occasions appreciated the coordination led by the chief minister and the state Public Works Department from the beginning of the project.
Criticising the inclusion of BJP state president Rajeev Chandrashekhar in the event, he sought to know whether the saffron party president is the one to attend such a function instead of PWD minister.
Riyas added that attempts to erase the role of the LDF government in the project would not succeed, as the people of Kerala were aware of the facts.
Meanwhile, M B Rajesh said he had received information about his inclusion in the programme schedule only on Tuesday and had prior engagements in his constituency.
“I am not attending the PM’s programme. Yesterday, I only came to know that my name is included in the list. I already have scheduled programmes in my constituency. I don’t want to avoid such committed events,” he said.
While talking to the media, Rajesh also said he had a bad experience while going to attend an event of PM Modi as a state government representative last time in Thiruvananthapuram.
He alleged that the SPG officials had asked him to show the Aadhar card even if he possessed a VIP pass approved by the Prime Minister’s Office. Reacting to the development, General Education Minister V Sivankutty termed the exclusion of Riyas as “shocking” and politically motivated.
He said it was surprising that representatives of the Kerala government were deliberately left out of the function to inaugurate the highway, for which the state had spent substantial funds on land acquisition.
Sivankutty also said Kerala was the first state in the country where a state government directly spent money for the development of national highways.
The minister further claimed that sidelining the Public Works Department and the LDF government in connection with the project was a violation of democratic norms.
He also alleged that the BJP was attempting to use a project, implemented with the “sweat and money” of the state, for narrow political gains.
However, senior BJP leader B Gopalakrishnan alleged that the state government and CPI(M) were attempting to consolidate Muslim votes in the upcoming Assembly polls by boycotting the PM’s event. (Agencies)
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