The Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary and Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan has alleged that the United Democratic Front (UDF) has hidden agenda on the new Mullaperiyar Dam issue.
Inaugurating the district conference of the CPI (M) here on Friday he said that “contrary to the common stand taken by both the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) on the issue the State Cabinet in its last meeting took a decision for the joint control of the new Dam without consulting the Opposition.”
“This shows that the UDF has a hidden agenda on the issue. Thus the LDF will not support the UDF and its government on their new stand for the joint control of Mullaperiyar Dam,” the CPI (M) state secretary said.
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He said that “the Government should have called an all-party meeting before taking such a major decision. So far on Mullaperiyar issue all political parties in the State had a common stand. The Government should have been transparent on the issue and any major decision on it should have been taken only after an all-party meeting as it was done earlier.”
He said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured an all-party delegation from Kerala last month that the Centre will intervene in the matter for an amicable settlement. But the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram took an open stand favouring Tamil Nadu that had opposed the new Dam. This shows that the P.M’s promise of considering Kerala’s request was torpedoed by his Home Minister.
Once again the Central government’s stand on the issue was clear when Defence Minister A.K. Antony expressed his helplessness to intervene in the matter for Kerala’s demand for a new Dam in Mullaperiyar, Mr. Vijayan said.
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He said that the stand taken by the UDF government in the Kerala High Court by filing an affidavit that if there is a breach of Mullaperiyar Dam the downstream Idukki dam can withhold its waters had weakened Kerala’s demand for a new Dam. Any person with minimum commonsense knows that if there is breakage of the Mullaperiyar Dam its waters will become disastrous and wipe out the down stream areas in no time.
No body can assure that the waters will quietly flow down to Idukki Dam, the CPI (M) Secretary said.
He said that the UDF government is surviving with a very small majority. Thus to win the Piravom by-election they are trying all tricks. One such antics was that some rank holders of Public Service Commission was brought by Chief Minister’s son Chandy Oommen in front of the Cabinet meeting room in State Secretariat and congratulated Chief Minister Oommen Chandy by giving sweets to him for recommending the extension of the period of the rank list. This was part of a pre-planned drama enacted by the Chief Minister to win Piravom by-election for saving his government.
But majority of the PSC rank holders belongs to CPI (M) being the major political party in the State. So these antics will not work in this politically conscious State of Kerala, he said.
The three-day district conference began with the hoisting of the party’s red flag by veteran party leader and District Committee member M. Vamanan Namboodiri.
Those who were present at the inaugural function include Leader of Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, party Central Committee members P. Karunakaran, M.P, A. Vijayaraghavan, V.V. Dekshinamoorthy, P.K. Sreemathy and party State Secretariat members T. Sivadasa Menon, A.K. Balan, M.L.A, M. Chandran, M.L.A, district secretary P. Unni among others.