Kerala - Kannur   

EC endorsing Congress demands, says VS

KANNUR: Accusing the Congress leadership of portraying the people of Kannur district as troublemakers, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said the Election Commission (EC) is endorsing the demands of Congress leaders as regards the byelection in the Kannur Assembly constituency.

Addressing an election rally of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) at Alavil here on Tuesday, Mr. Achuthanandan said the EC was carrying out the steps sought by the Congress leadership. After the EC accepted its demand for the removal of the District Collector, the Congress had raised deployment of ‘military’ (Central forces) in the constituency, he said. “The Election Commission is expected to hold free and fair elections and Kerala is a State which has witnessed several elections,” he said.

Reiterating that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) would adversely affect the interests of the State, the Chief Minister said the treaty was to slash the prices of agriculture produces.

The Central government should have sought the State’s views on the treaty before it was signed, he said. If there was a negative list as part of the FTA, the people should be convinced that import tax would be levied on products enlisted on the negative list. He said that some journalists who had accompanied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to a recent ASEAN summit informed him that the members of ASEAN had not approved of the negative list.

Though the Centre had announced a Rs.1,800-crore special package for the State two years ago, not a single penny had been sanctioned, he said. However, relief measures such as agriculture loan waiver and interest-free farm loan introduced by the LDF government had put an end to suicide by farmers. The government’s intervention had resulted in cultivation of paddy in another 50,000 acres in the State including in Kattampally here, he said.

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EC endorsing Congress demands, says VS

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