The ongoing anti-SilverLine protests showed no signs of abating for the third consecutive day on Wednesday. Revenue surveyors faced stiff opposition from Congress workers at Chottinikkara in Ernakulam. They uprooted K-Rail markers and dumped them in a nearby pond.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan reiterated the Congress workers' resolve to court arrest and embrace incarceration to protect local communities from the government's highhandedness.
BJP State president K. Surendran ratcheted up his party’s resistance to K-Rail. He alleged big-ticket corruption in the project. For a sizeable commission, the government had allowed a private company in Japan to palm off discarded railway technology to Kerala at a massive cost to the taxpayer.
SilverLine lacked Centre’s approval, he sad adding the revenue survey to mark K-Rail alignment was illegal. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had unleashed the police on families in danger of being dislocated by SilverLine.
The BJP would uproot K-Rail markers and deposit them at Mr. Vijayan's official residence. Mr. Surendran said the agitation had assumed the proportions of "save Sabarimala" protests that had forced Mr. Vijayan to backtrack.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) and the government braced themselves to counter the protests head-on. CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the triad of the Congress, BJP and fundamentalist outfits were hell-bent on subverting Kerala's development.
He said the same forces had opposed the GAIL pipeline and NH modernisation in vain. The government and the party had the mandate to implement K-Rail. The Left Democratic Front had welcomed the proposal when the previous Oommen Chandy government mooted it. The State would adequately compensate and rehabilitate displaced families. The Congress and the BJP interpreted Communist Party of India's perceived silence on K-Rail as indicative of the growing opposition within the LDF against the mega scheme.
