V D Satheesan, the leader of the opposition, has demanded an apology from K Surendran, the state president of the BJP, for his comments about CPM women leaders being “anti-women.” Satheesan also reacted angrily to the CPM leadership’s lack of response.
In response to the CPM’s continued silence, Satheesan warned reporters on Tuesday that the Congress will file a lawsuit.
Satheesan expressed amazement at the silence on the matter from CPM secretary M V Govindan and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Surendran insulted CPM women leaders on Sunday while addressing at a BJP event for women’s empowerment.
“Why is the CPM leadership not filing a case against Surendran, when otherwise the CPM’s practice is to slap defamatory cases in fictitious and false cases against their detractors? We will take up the case legally, if the CPM decides to continue their stoic silence,” said Satheesan.
On Monday, Surendran received criticism from state Congress president K Sudhakaran and vice president V T Balram as well.
The Opposition also criticised the LDF government for undermining local body decentralisation. Satheesan claimed that the state administration has been taking its time to give the local bodies’ plan funding and development funds. The finance ministry had issued orders to give the second portion in the third payment for the local money in response to media pressure. The third installment still has one more part to come.
“At the fag end of the financial year the state government has not given the full amount in the third instalment which has affected the smooth functioning of the local bodies. The bills worth Rs 13,223 crore are not being passed where the ploy of the state government is to spill over the remaining funds to the next fiscal year. This would only lead to utter chaos next year,” said Satheesan.
Also, he stated that on Friday, the UDF leaders would hold protest meetings before all municipal bodies around the state. Satheesan also asked for an update on the investigation into the Brahmapuram waste management fire problem. He declared that leaders of the UDF and Congress will demonstrate against Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification on April 5 at Kerala Raj Bhavan.
