Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) members boycotted Governor P. Sathasivam’s address to the Kerala Assembly on Friday as part of their ongoing campaign for the ouster of Finance Minister K.M. Mani from the United Democratic Front (UDF) Cabinet over the bar bribery row.
The Governor entered the House to the accompaniment of sloganeering by the Opposition members. As soon as the national anthem ended, and Mr. Sathasivam rose to deliver his first policy address to the House, Leader of the Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan was on his feet to remind him that he was about deliver a policy address for a Cabinet that also included Mr. Mani who faced serious charges of corruption. The Governor turned to the Opposition Leader said, “I will consider your objection.” As the Governor proceeded to read the policy address, the Opposition members once again began shouting slogans and marched out of the House.
The Governor, who spoke for close to 90 minutes, called for concerted work by all sides to achieve ‘the goal of good governance with unity of thought, word and deed’. He said the work on the Vizhinjam port would begin soon and that the Kochi Metro project was progressing very fast. The government would soon come out with vision document-Infrastructure Master Plan 2030-to identify infrastructure gaps in select sectors and prepare a shelf of projects to bridge the identified gaps.
Mr. Sathasivam regretted the Centre’s refusal to concede the State’s repeated request for revising the guidelines for Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). In the case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the State was finding it difficult to provide jobs to the 29 lakh registered families as the Centre was not ready to include dairy, coir, khadi and other traditional industries in the ambit of the MGNREGS, he said.
