Staff Reporter
KOTTAYAM: Kerala Congress (M) leader K.M. Mani, absent from the State’s political scene for more than a month due to health reasons, bounced back on Saturday with a hard hitting outburst against the LDF Government. He was addressing the media at a ‘meet the press’ here on Saturday.
Mr. Mani’s focus was on the need for ‘liberation’ from the ‘misrule’ by mobilising popular support against the Government. In what appeared to be an effort to remove any apprehensions in the minds the people about his physical fitness, Mr. Mani pointed out the many ’drawbacks’ of the LDF Government, which mainly focused on the minority rights issue, criticisms over the Government’s moves in the aided educational sector, the ‘failure’ in dealing with the viral fever situation and the ‘misadventure’ in Munnar. “Liberation is a beautiful term which has a spiritual connotation,” he said.
“When we talk about liberation, we are not hinting at dismissing the Government with Central help as was in 1959,” Mr. Mani said.
Mr. Mani would not be attending the rally organised by the Inter church council on Sunday at Kottayam, he said in reaction to a query, but said he wanted the people to extend support to all such movements.
It was the efforts on the part of the CPI(M) to stifle the self-financing educational agencies and to politicise the education sector which were the root of the present crisis, he said.
Criticising the Government for not coming to the aid of the people suffering from an unprecedented viral fever epidemic, Mr. Mani said the Government should have sought the aid of international bodies including the WHO.
