KASARAGOD: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday accused the Congress of trying to perpetrate violence and unrest in Kerala under the garb of protests against the K-Rail's SilverLine project.
On the same day, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan dismissed the Congress's protests by calling the party a "sack of salt dipped in water".
In a tweet, the chief minister drew parallels between the Congress’s protests against SilverLine and the killing of five CPM members by Congress workers in Kasaragod’s Cheemeni in 1987.
On March 23, 1987, after the polling for the Assembly election, CPM activists K V Kunhikannan, P Kunjappan, Alavalappil Ambu, C Koran, and M Koran were tallying the turnout in the party office, where Congress workers shut the doors and windows and set the building on fire. When Kunjappan jumped out of the window, he was hacked to death by the miscreants waiting outside. Others died inside the office.
"Today is the 35th anniversary of the Cheemeni Massacre in which five CPI(M) comrades were torched and hacked to death by @INCIndia miscreants. Upholding their memory, let's pledge to resist Congress' current attempts to perpetrate violence & unrest in Kerala," Vijayan tweeted on Wednesday.
However, his party secretary Balakrishnan was dismissive of the Congress, which has lined up an 'army of vigilantes' to resist the SilverLine Project, a semi-high speed railway that aims to connect Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram in four hours.
"Let all the armies come. Today, the Left Democratic Front has the strength to face all these armies," Balakrishnan told reporters in Kasaragod. "Where is the Congress? It has become like a sack of salt dipped in water," he said.
The Congress is protesting for the sake of protesting, he said. In 2012, the Congress-led UDF government proposed a bullet train between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod. It had plans to extend the standard-gauge line up to Mangaluru.
T Balakrishnan, the chairman and managing director of Kerala High-Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (KHSRCL), which was spearheading the project, had a session for the MLAs. "I was then the deputy opposition leader and attended the meeting. He said the train can reach Kasaragod in 1 hour and 52 minutes. We did not oppose the project. We wanted it to be implemented, he said.
The UDF government even erected boundary stones to demarcate the land for the projects. "Those stones would still be there. We have not uprooted them," Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said.
He said K-Rail (Kerala Rail Development Corporation) was now laying the boundary markers to conduct the social impact study. "The high court had also said there was nothing wrong in laying the boundary stones," he said.
But the land would be acquired only after the land losers would be adequately compensated, he said.
The government has announced a higher compensation for those giving up the land, four times more than the market price in gram panchayats and two times more in towns. "No one's land will be acquired by force or by going to war with the people," he said.
He said the Union government had given its in-principle approval for the project, following which the Detailed Project Report was prepared. "The final approval of the Union government will be needed after completion of other processes, including the acquisition of the land," he said.
The CPM state secretary said similar projects were being implemented in eight other states, ruled by both the BJP and the Congress. "But they are stonewalling the project only in Kerala. Not just SilverLine. They are opposing the Sabari rail line, too," he said.