THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala government led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday has come under the spotlight for depicting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on the cover of the state finance budget 2020-21 document.
Issuing clarification on the same, Thomas Isaac justified that it is a political statement.
"Definitely, it is a political statement, the cover of my budget speech. It is a painting by a Malayalam artist of Mahatma Gandhi's murder scene. We are sending out a message that we will not forget who murdered Gandhi."
He also alleged that history is being re-written and National Register of Citizens (NRC) is being used to divide the country on communal lines.
"This is important at the times when history is being re-written. There is an attempt to erase some popular memories and use NRC to divide the population on communal lines. Kerala will stand united."
NRC is an official record of those people who are legal citizens of India. The dossier includes demographic information about all those individuals who qualify as citizens of India as per the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The register was first prepared after the 1951 Census of India and since then it has not been updated until recently.