The Union minister also claimed the unemployment rate in Kerala has been more than twice the national average for the past several years.
Nirmala Sitharaman. (X)
Campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls in Kerala intensified on Thursday, 28 March, as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted the Left-ruled state’s allegedly troubling financial situation, the numerous financial scandals in the state, and the purportedly high unemployment rate.
Citing an RBI report, Sitharaman said that Kerala is among the top five financially distressed states in India and attacked both the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF, which have governed the state over the years, for its woes.
Sitharaman, who was in Kerala to inaugurate the BJP-led NDA’s Lok Sabha poll convention in Thiruvananthapuram, raked up the issue of gold smuggling through diplomatic bags, the Life Mission scam and the multi-crore Karuvannur Cooperative bank scam, and said that financial scandals in Kerala were like ‘Matryoshka dolls’; “You touch (open) one, and there is another.”
Matryoshka dolls, which are Russian in origin, are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another.
The union minister also claimed that the unemployment rate in Kerala has been more than twice the national average for the past several years and said that “the LDF, therefore, has no right to talk about national unemployment”.
The minister also referred to the political murders in the state and the more recent death of a veterinary student that has kicked off a political storm in Kerala to attack the Left government.
On financial problems being faced by the state, Sitharaman claimed it was due to the “continuous” poor fiscal management by both the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) — either of whom were always in power in the state.
She further claimed that in the past six years since 2016-17, the Kerala government has far exceeded its permitted borrowing limit of 3 percent and has resorted to extra-budgetary borrowing to the tune of over ₹42,000 crore.
Sitharaman said that this off-budget borrowing was carried out through entities such as Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) and Kerala Social Security Pension Company Ltd, which have no revenue of their own.
“Since they have no revenue of their own and cannot repay the loans, who has to repay it? It has to be repaid from the government treasury. Which means the people of Kerala end up paying for it,” the minister said after inaugurating the BJP-led NDA’s Lok Sabha poll convention in Thiruvananthapuram.
Despite this, no money has been spent on development of the state, she claimed.
Sitharaman said that despite the state government claiming that 70 per cent of its committed expenditure— of around ₹94,000 crore—in the budget was meant to be spent on salaries, pensions and loan interest payments, wages have allegedly not been paid for nearly six months.
Besides that, she claimed that spending by the state government on education, health, rural development, urban development, police, and roads and bridges was below the national average.
She also claimed that hardly any investment was coming into the state due to the stand the Left government had taken towards Kitex, which had taken its business and over ₹3,000 crore worth of investment to Telangana.
“They (the Left government) are not interested in investments, they are only interested in kickbacks,” she alleged.
The union minister did not spare the Congress either, claiming that when the UPA government was in power at the Centre and there were eight ministers from Kerala, the state only got ₹46,303 crore in tax devolution and around ₹25,000 crore as grants-in-aid from 2004 to 2014.
However, from 2014 to 29 February 2024, the Narendra Modi government has given the state ₹1,55,649 crore in tax devolution and ₹1,58,983 crore as grants-in-aid, even though there were no ministers from Kerala, she said.
“He also gave over ₹2,000 crore as an interest-free loan to the state without any recommendation from the Finance Commission for developing infrastructure. But, the state government claims that nothing is given by the Centre.”
“People of Kerala should know that what you need to get, what you are entitled to get, what you have to get is coming in time and fully from ‘Prime Minister Modi’s tax devolutions’,” Sitharaman claimed.
The minister alleged that while both the LDF and UDF “did nothing for the state”, the Prime Minister has paid special attention to Kerala.
She highlighted the various central government schemes, like Jan Dhan accounts, PM Mudra loans, Jal Jeevan Mission, etc and claimed that these indicated the amount of work the BJP-led central government was putting in for the welfare of the people.
“Therefore, we do not need an opposition in Parliament from here, we need a minister from here so that the voice of Kerala and Thiruvananthapuram can be heard there,” Sitharaman said.
She urged everyone to vote for Minister of State for Information Technology and Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar who is BJP’s candidate in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in the coming LS polls.
(Disclaimer: The headline, subheads, and intro of this report along with the photos may have been reworked by South First. The rest of the content is from a syndicated feed, and has been edited for style.)
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 27, 2024
Apr 27, 2024
Apr 27, 2024
Apr 27, 2024
