THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Rejecting the media reports which suggested a rift in Kerala NDA, the alliance partners told Express on Wednesday that what had been reported was a mere figment of the imagination. BJP national executive member V Muralidharan said that in fact no discussion as reported in the media had taken place at the NDA meeting held in Kochi the other day. “Amit Shahji had met the NDA leaders in Alappuzha. No one had raised any issue over differences of opinion or rift,” said Muralidharan.
He pointed out that a newspaper had even gone to the extent of saying that the state NDA had started discussing seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in 2019. What was discussed in the last meeting was about the meetings to be held at the constituency-level from December 9 to 15.
JSS general secretary A N Rajan Babu told Express that there was a hidden agenda behind planting stories in the media. “There is an ulterior motive behind planting such baseless stories. There is no also no rift over organising meetings to explain the benefits of demonetisation,” he said.
C K Janu, JRS leader and another NDA alliance partner, also denied reports of a rift in the state NDA. She said that she also had met Amit Shah at Alappuzha Guest House and told him that the development projects promised for the welfare of tribals had not yet been launched. “As I was down with fever I couldn’t attend the meeting at Kochi and I had informed the NDA leadership about my inability to attend,” she said.
Central team to visit Attappady
Janu said that she had met Tribal Development Minister Jual Oram and Union Health Minister J P Nadda and discussed the issue of infant deaths in Attappadi. She said the Health Minister had promised to send a Central team of experts to conduct a study and propose the future course of action. However, the Union Minister told her that the Centre could implement the projects only through the State Government.
“The State Government has not given any proposal to end the infant deaths in Attappadi. Minister Nadda said that in case of no initiative from the State Government, the Central could not act directly,” she said.