Thiruvananthapuram The CPI(M) on Tuesday lashed out at BJP president J.P. Nadda for remarking that Kerala has become a “haven for terrorists”. The party countered that Kerala was the only State where a single communal riot had not been reported in all years of the Left rule.
In a statement here, the CPI(M) State secretariat said all attempts by the Sangh Parivar to vitiate the communal peace in Kerala had been nipped in the bud by the State government and that Mr. Nadda’s attempts to malign the CPI(M)-led government would not cut ice with the people.
Mr. Nadda had earlier said that with Kerala becoming a hotspot for terrorism, life had become quite unsafe for the people of Kerala.
It said that it was preposterous that Mr. Nadda had raised the allegation of terrorism and communal disharmony about a State where secularism prevailed. It alleged that it was the RSS which was constantly trying to violate law and order and disturb peace in the State and that the people were well aware that “in the last five years, 17 comrades of the CPI(M) had fallen prey to the vicious games played by the RSS”.
The CPI(M) also took umbrage at the “malicious campaign” by the BJP camp that the State was sinking deeper every day into a huge debt trap. It hit out that all States were suffering under the wrong fiscal policies of the Centre and that Kerala’s financial crisis too was a direct result of that.
The Centre has been squeezing all States by slashing the State share of taxes and by doing away with the GST compensation. Even the poor were being hit because the Centre has chosen to cut the labour budget for MNREGA as well as the number of workdays. Despite the p[ressure put by the Centre, Kerala had managed to move ahead with its development initiatives, the statement claimed.
The BJP had better understand that the people of the State had the sensibility to discern the malicious campaign by BJP against the State government and to counter it, the CPI(M) State Secretariat said in its statement.
