On the second day of his visit to Kerala to galvanize the State party machinery for the Parliament elections in 2019 and broaden its appeal to the electorate, BJP president Amit Shah held discussions with office-bearers of the party and leaders of the Sangh Parivar on Saturday.
He met Major Archbishop and Catholicos of the Malankara Catholic Church Cardinal Baselios Cleemis and Archbishop Soosa Pakiam M. of the Latin Archdiocese, Thiruvananthapuram, at Bishop’s House, Pattom.
He also addressed a meeting of special invitees and participated in an interaction with social leaders. Emerging from the meeting, Cardinal Cleemis said they had talked to Mr. Shah about the need to work together and the role of minorities in national progress. “He heard us patiently,” he said.
In the morning, Mr. Shah was received by party leaders at the airport from where he proceeded to offer floral tributes to a statue of Ayyankali at Vellayambalam. For the better part of the day, he was huddled with the State and district BJP office-bearers, leaders of the Sangh Parivar and workers in charge of parliamentary constituencies.
Aid for State
Addressing the meeting of special invitees, including industry captains, scientists and personalities from the entertainment industry in the evening, Mr. Shah claimed that the NDA government under Narendra Modi had allocated a development aid of ₹1,50,000 crore for Kerala over the last three years. He said Kerala’s share of Central taxes had gone up from ₹33,368 crore to ₹98,912 crore and the grant for local bodies had been increased from ₹2,732 crore to ₹7,683 crore.
The Centre had also sanctioned a revenue deficit grant of ₹9,519 crore and enhanced the grant-in-aid assistance for the State from ₹5,476 crore to ₹17,968 crore. Mr. Shah said Kerala had been allocated ₹194 crore for the Smart City project, besides ₹2,359 crore for nine Amrut cities, ₹1,257 crore for the Kochi Metro Rail project and ₹2,500 crore for development of ports. An amount of ₹64,000 crore had also been given for the development of national highways in the State, he said. Mr. Shah said the Communist parties and the Congress were on the wane and that the NDA had reversed the policy of appeasement and ended the era of dynastic rule and casteist politics under the former UPA rule.
Former Chief Secretary D. Babu Paul, former ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair, MPs Suresh Gopi and Richard Hay, and BJP State president Kummanam Rajasekharan were also present.
