People's Democracy

Don't Bring Frivolous

Issues into Campaign

Yechury's Advice to Rahul

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury has criticised Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi for making frivolous remarks about the age of Kerala chief minister V S Achutanandan.

Addressing election campaign meetings in Alapuzha district on April 10, Yechury advised the Congress leaders not to bring extraneous issues into the campaign. Rahul Gandhi had stated in his campaign speech that the people of Kerala will have to live with a 93 year old chief minister if the LDF is re-elected. Yechury referring to these remarks in his speech countered: “Have we ever raised the issue of having an 80 year old prime minister who had five stents in his heart? Why are you questioning the age of VS”, he asked and pointed out that the Congress party has no qualms in seeking another term for the DMK headed by Karunanidhi, who is 86 years old and who is wheel chair ridden, in the neighbouring state of Tamilnadu. In fact, these remarks betray their nervousness about LDF coming back to power in the state, he said.

Yechury also refuted the charge made by Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi about no development in Kerala during the last five years. He asked if that was the case then why did the Manmohan Singh government itself give an award to Kerala government for its performance. He advised the top leaders of Congress to let the people chose their government on the basis of facts. He termed it strange that after making this charge, the Congress leaders are claiming that it was only due to centre's money the schemes are being implemented. Yechury said it was not a charity but Constitutional duty of the Central government to devolve funds to the states.

He  appealed to the people of Alapuzha to re-elect Thomas Isaac, the state finance minister with big margins for the tremendous amount of good work he has done in the government.

CREATE HISTORY BY

RE-ELECTING LDF

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury has called upon the people of Kerala to once again create history by re-electing LDF in the present election – a feat that has never happened so far in the state. He reminded that the people of Kerala created history by democratically electing a communist government for the first time ever in the world in 1957.

Yechury was addressing a series of election campaign meetings in Thiruvananthapuram on April 8 for the LDF. There is no anti-incumbency factor in Kerala today because of the remarkable achievements of the LDF government, asserted the CPI(M) leader. This was because the LDF government utilised the resources for the welfare of people not like previous UDF regime or present Congress-led government at centre that looted the resources. He pointed out that the provisional report of Census 2011 puts Kerala on top of all states in terms of human development indices. 

There has not been a single farmer suicide during the LDF rule while around 1500 farmers resorted to this extreme step in distress during the previous UDF regime. The steps taken by the LDF government to improve the lot of farmers at a time when agriculture in the entire country was facing a serious crisis is remarkable, he said.

Yechury said the strong sense of revulsion among people against rampant corruption of UPA-II government was reflected in the reaction to Anna Hazare's fast across the country. He felt corruption is not only about immorality and criminality. It meant depriving people of better livelihood. He illustrated this by giving out the statistics that only half the amount of 1.76 lakh crore looted in the 2G spectrum scam would have been sufficient to provide 35 kg of foodgrains to every person in the country for two years. Similarly every child in the country could have been given free education along with uniforms, books and mid-day meals. He underlined that the re-election of LDF is necessary for the people of Kerala to consolidate and carry forward the gains they made during the last 5 years of LDF rule.

(NSA)