KASARAGOD: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday accused the Congress of trying to perpetrate violence and unrest in Kerala under the garb of protest against the SilverLine project.
Meanwhile, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan dismissed the Congress’ protest 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, when 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 assailants waiting outside. Others were charred to death 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 is now laying the boundary markers to conduct the social impact study. “The High Court had also said that there was nothing wrong in laying the boundary stones,” he said. But the land would be acquired only after the land losers are adequately compensated, he said.
The government has announced a higher compensation for those giving up land, four times more than the market price in grama 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.
MPs from state lock horns in RS
T’Puram: The SilverLine project and protests against the ongoing social impact assessment proceedings triggered a war of words between MPs from the state in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Union Minister and BJP leader V Muraleedharan said the semi-high speed rail project needs to be re-examined in the wake of people’s protests and environmental concerns, while CPM’s John Brittas flayed the Centre for its neglect and double standards towards railway development in the state. K C Venugopal of the Congress urged the Centre to scrap the entire project. According to Muraleedharan, state government officials were forcibly trespassing into people’s houses and laying stones for social impact assessment, claiming that SliverLine was a central project.Charging the railway minister with encouraging both supporters and adversaries of SilverLine, Brittas said this was not the way the Railway Minister of a country should approach such an important project.
BJP to take protest to Cliff House
T’Puram: BJP state president K Surendran has alleged that the first Pinarayi Vijayan government had entered into a ‘major deal’ with a Japanese company on the SilverLine semi high-speed rail project even before the assembly election. Surendran told reporters that the CPM and the then LDF government had derived the benefit of the deal. He added that the then LDF government had given an assurance to the Japanese company that equipment lying idle would be bought for the semi high speed rail project from the foreign firm. BJP district president V V Rajesh said the BJP will take the anti-SilverLine protests to Cliff House, the chief minister’s official residence. He said BJP workers would uproot all K-Rail stones installed in Thiruvananthapuram district.
‘Deal protest in a democratic way’
Kochi: The state government should deal with the growing protest against the SilverLine project in a democratic manner, the Kerala Region Latin Catholic Council said. “To consider the public as enemies and apply force against them are not right. Considering their earlier experiences, it is quite normal for people to have apprehensions about the project. Taking into account the fragile environment and the state’s weak financial status, the government should re-examine whether the project is a must,” it said. The government has the obligation to conduct studies regarding social, environmental, and financial impacts of the project and clear people’s doubts.
‘Land acquisition by force will make K-Rail a tear rail’
Kochi: The Church-run daily Deepika published an article on Wednesday that questioned the state’s development priorities. The article titled ‘Does development in Kerala mean just K-Rail’, by Fr Michael Pulickal, secretary of Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council commission for social harmony and vigilance, pointed out flaws in the developmental projects implemented by the state government. “The government promises that SilverLine will reduce the travel time between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod to four hours. To ensure people’s safety, walls have to be built on either side of the rail. To avoid flooding, the railway line has to be built even higher,” the article said. The article has questioned the state’s claim of speedy completion of the project “The project that requires more than 3,000 acres of land will affect over 10,000 families directly.... The attempts to acquire land by force will make K-Rail a tear rail,” the article said.
There is no difference of opinion in LDF regarding Rail project: Vijayaraghavan
Kannur: There is no difference of opinion among constituents of the LDF regarding the implementation of the K-Rail project, said LDF convener A Vijayaraghavan on Wednesday. He told reporters that the project was mentioned in the election manifesto of the LDF and it would be implemented at any cost. “The agitations against the project by the UDF is politically motivated. A majority of the people in the state favour the project and nobody supports the ongoing agitation,” said Vijayaraghavan. “The protest by the UDF against the project is designed to ensure its political alliance with the BJP for its survival. The Congress has lost its base and trying to get into a long-standing partnership with BJP for its survival,” he said.