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Kerala CM issues rebuttal to Telangana CM, slams ‘personally insulting remarks’
Vijayan’s response was part of an ongoing verbal feud with Reddy who, in an election rally in Kerala, had claimed that the Communist chief minister’s time was over, borrowing a popular film dialogue for it
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday wrote to his Telangana counterpart A Revanth Reddy, expressing disagreement with the latter’s alleged ‘personally insulting remarks’ as part of settling political differences.
Vijayan’s response was part of an ongoing verbal feud with Reddy who, in an election rally in Kerala, had claimed that the Communist chief minister’s time was over, borrowing a popular film dialogue for it.
Reddy, this week, also issued a six-page statement, slamming the Kerala CM for relying on ‘outdated data’ and comparing its achievements with that of Telangana.
“Nee po mone Vijaya… your time is over”, Reddy had said referring to the famous Mohanlal dialogue from the Malayalam film Narasimham.
“In the present reply, which is to a colleague chief minister of a non-BJP government, I want to express strong disagreement on the attitude of making personally insulting remarks to settle political differences,” CM Vijayan wrote.
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The Kerala CM stated that he did not intend to get into a debate on the performance of the Congress government in Telangana and that the people of the state will assess its track record. He underlined that his administration has continuously published progress reports, which are available in the public domain, and that such an exercise is not done merely at five-year intervals.
CM Vijayan rebutted the Telangana counterpart’s claim that his administration was engaged in selective appropriation of Kerala’s achievements and downplaying the contributions of Congress chief ministers like K Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy. Vijayan stated that it was the first Communist government elected in 1957 which brought in a bill to end the domination of landlords and that the literacy movement in the state was spearheaded by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of 1987-91.
He also went on to list the several schemes and programmes in sectors like public health and improving industrial climate and governance that successive LDF governments brought in and built upon.
“The perception you have stated about industrial stagnation is a stereotyped one. Kerala is moving ahead in the startup sector and this has been acknowledged widely,” CM Vijayan wrote in the letter.
He also rejected the accusation of the Telangana CM that his government was not criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government at the Centre. Vijayan said that his government is fighting legal battles in the Supreme Court against the Centre invoking the state’s rights under Article 131.
The statements from the Communist and Congress CMs come in the backdrop of a heated electoral contest primarily between the CPM-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF in Kerala. Reddy campaigned for several United Democratic Front (UDF) candidates in the state. Voting in Kerala will take place on April 9.
