The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is bracing for a season of Opposition protests.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have announced, separately, a spate of agitations in the run-up to the government’s mass contact programme and the Keraleeyam gala in November-December.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said both programmes were thinly veiled pre-election propaganda bankrolled by the public exchequer and a bid to cover up the government’s misdemeanours.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) will set the tone for impending anti-government agitations in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls by laying siege to the Secretariat on Wednesday.
In November, the UDF will put the government to public trial for its “entrenched corruption, nepotism and maladministration” in 140 Assembly constituencies across the State.
Mr. Satheesan said the LDF had run the State’s finances to ruin. Slack financial administration has rendered Kerala a haven for tax dodgers. Bar hotel and jewellery owners were the primary beneficiaries of the government’s corruption-driven and wilful failure to collect taxes due to the State from the businesses.
The CPI(M) has retained an opportunity to mint money and enrich the coffers of its leaders. The Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam was a classic example, he said.
The CPI(M) had constituted a committee to issue loans to favourites on dubious collaterals and suspect guarantees, including over-valued and, in some cases, fabricated and illegally re-pledged property deeds, he added.
Mr. Satheesan also alleged a corruption of ₹750 crore in the government’s decision to cancel an affordable power purchase agreement.
He also sought to punch holes in the police investigation into the appointment fraud that dragged Health Minister Veena George’s office into a controversy. “The police ignored the complainant’s petition and investigated the case based on a complaint filed by a Minister’s assistant under a cloud of suspicion,” Mr. Satheesan said.
BJP State president K. Surendran also sought to put the government in the dock for corruption and maladministration. He told journalists in Kochi that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) workers would lay siege to the Secretariat on October 30, demanding Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s resignation.
Mr. Surendran said the alliance would hold a workshop at Cherthala in Alappuzha on November 6 to coordinate pre-Lok Sabha election preparations and campaign work.
