CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s failure to meet Kuttanad flood victims draw Opposition flak
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala on Sunday hit out at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over the latter’s failure to meet the people of Kuttanad who lost virtually everything in the devastating floods triggered by the monsoon showers. The Chief Minister’s behaviour towards the public reminded one of the imperious ways of erstwhile feudals (‘thampuran’), he told reporters here.
Chennithala said he had boycotted the meeting in protest against the Chief Minister’s decision not to visit Kuttanad despite chairing a review meeting at Alappuzha. He said Congress MPs K C Venugopal and Kodikkunnil Suresh, who were there at Ground Zero to help out the flood victims, besides raising the issue in Parliament, had been invited to the review meeting at the last minute. However, both the MPs stayed away in protest against the purported slight.
According to Chennithala, Pinarayi’s disinclination to undertake a visit to the flood-hit region is all the more shocking since the affected area is barely 15 minutes away from the Alappuzha collectorate where the review meeting was held. Not only does it reflect on Pinarayi’s alleged lack of sympathy for the victims, it also showed CM had nothing to tell the people of the relief measures initiated by the government, he said.
UDF stays away
Alappuzha: The UDF on Sunday boycotted the review meeting on Kuttanad flood relief work here. UDF representatives including Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala kept off the meeting in protest against the CM’s decision not to visit the flood-ravaged areas. Though the district administration had invited invited MPs, MLAs, local body heads of the affected areas and government officers, the UDF leaders failed to turn up. Chennithala went as far as to term the review meeting a gimmick.” They are merely going through the motions and the government’s intervention is ineffective. The LDF Ministers reached the flood-hit areas only after the Opposition raised voices against the government’s slackness. Even the Kuttanad MLA was conspicuous by his absence during the relief work,” he said.
CM skips media briefing after channel’s mike brushes him
Alappuzha: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday left Alappuzha without talking to reporters after a mike of one of the TV channels brushed his body. Pinarayi was about to leave after chairing a two-hour-long high-level meeting to review the flood situation and relief operations at Kuttanad held at the Golden Jubilee auditorium of the Alappuzha Medical College. Mediapersons were not allowed inside the meeting room. So, when he came out, they rushed to him to know about the meeting’s outcome. Though Pinarayi started to speak, the mike of one of the TV channels brushed his body in the rush. An irritated Chief Minister left the venue in his car.The Opposition leader flayed the reason cited by the CM - President Ram Nath Kovind’s visit to the state which got under way on Sunday - for not visiting Kuttanad. He said if the situation so warranted, the CM should have taken a chopper to travel to Kuttanad since such extraordinary situations merited helicopter ride rather than party programmes - a dig at Pinarayi using a helicopter to reach the party meet venue.Chennithala termed the havoc wrought by the deluge in Kuttanad unprecedented and he put the extent of loss at `1,000 crore. He lauded the yeomen service rendered by the dailies, TV news channels, NGOs and social organisations in the flood ravaged areas.
Call for donation to relief fund
T’Puram: The Finance Department has called for donations to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund to help monsoon calamity victims. Online contributions can be made over SBI’s city branch account no. 67319948232. IFSC code: SBIN 0070028. Cheques and drafts can be sent to the Principal Secretary (Finance), Treasurer, Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund, Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram. Cash payments can be made at the Secretariat Finance Department. For details, call 0471-2518310, 2518684, 8330091573. email: cmdrf.cell@gmail.com.