The land rights strike of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) is a ‘fraud,’ Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash has said. Talking to reporters here on Wednesday, Mr. Prakash said the CPI(M) was befooling the poor through the agitation.
The previous CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had neither taken any step to provide land to the landless poor nor made any attempt to identify landless people in the State. The party had no moral right to organise such an agitation, he said.
It was the United Democratic Front (UDF) government which took up a systematic survey and found that the State had 2.33 lakh landless families. The government had decided to provide land to all the landless people by 2015. Over a lakh people would get land by August 15, 2013, he said.
The CPI(M) announced its stir after the government decided to provide land to all landless people, he said.
Former Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac’s statement that the UDF government was only continuing various development programmes launched by the previous LDF government baseless. If the CPI(M) had any concern for the landless poor, the party should have at least identified the landless people in the State, Mr. Prakash said. The ongoing stir was an attempt to malign the UDF government.
The LDF government had granted the various clearances for the proposed international airport project at Aranmula. The UDF government had never given any clearance for the project. It was the former Chief Minister, V.S. Achuthanandan, who had given an in-principle clearance to set up the airport on the basis of a letter sent by the then MLA, K.C. Rajagopalan, of the CPI(M), he said.
LDF’s Industries Minister and CPI(M) leader Elamaram Karim had taken steps to declare a large extent of land in the villages of Aranmula, Mallappuzhasserry, and Kidangannur as industrial area, Mr. Prakash said. The government had to examine whether there was any excess land in Aranmula, he added.
