P. C. George, the Independent MLA from Poonjar, put some spirit into the protracted budget discussions in the Assembly on Thursday.
Participating in the vote-on-account debate, he described Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as an individual in whom multiple behaviour patterns existed.
“At times Pinarayi behaved like a Chief Minister. At other times he acted like a local secretary of the CPI(M). Sometimes he was his old efficient self, the indomitable Power Minister who did away with blackouts and power outages in the State. He has a multiple or dual personality I think,” Mr. George said.
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The MLA attacked the government for appointing lawyers who fight criminal cases for racketeers and said he was neutral about the budget.
Team Pinarayi
In his maiden speech in the House, A.N. Shamsheer of the CPI(M) took a dig at social media-hooked Opposition legislators. He said had it not been for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, they would not have been in public life.
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He said Left MLAs had tread a different path, one of agitations and social interventions, to enter parliamentary politics.
He referred to the LDF government as “Team Pinarayi” and said the Left would wrest back Malappuram from the grip of the Indian Union Muslim League in 2026.
Congress MLA K.S. Sabarinath said the 19th century British politician Benjamin Disraeli’s observation best encapsulated Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac’s budget. “There are three kind of lies – lies, damned lies and statistics,” he said.
Dr. Isaac’s designer kurtas, his intellectualism and passion for planting trees won’t bring in investment into Kerala. “Show me the money,” he said borrowing a line from the Hollywood film Jerry Maguire.
CPI MLA Mullakkara Retnakaran accused the previous UDF government of destroying the moral climate in the State.