Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal’s statement that the Centre has imposed an economic embargo on Kerala is anti-Constitutional, BJP State president K. Surendran has said.
Mr. Balagopal should understand that Kerala was only a State in the country and not a separate entity. The financial allocation for each State was decided by the Finance Commission. Yet, by claiming that Kerala was singled out, he was raising or encouraging factionalism, Mr. Surendran said here.
He added that it was to hide his financial ineptitude that Mr. Balagopal was blaming the Centre. If the State government had not turned out to be a total failure in tax collection, the State’s allocation would have been more. If at the national level, tax collection was estimated to be 74%, in Kerala, this was only 42%. Nepotism, corruption and sheer inefficiency had been holding the State back from ensuring a proper tax collection system, Mr. Surendran said.
