Thiruvananthapuram: The opposition objected to perceived attempts by the ruling bench members to attribute the success of the rescue mission to the leadership of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. While CPM legislators said it was Pinarayi Vijayan who had given the call to the people to join in the rescue mission, the opposition members said fishermen and the youth volunteered on their own. The tit-for-tat took place during the special Assembly session on the floods on Thursday.
“No one asked them to come, they came on their own,” opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said. “But on the government's part there was utter lack of planning and some ministers were nowhere to be seen,” he added. CPM's Suresh Kurup said to say that people volunteered on their own was to trivialise the rescue effort.
Paravur MLA V D Satheesan said there were no rescue efforts for the first two days. “The rescue mission in Paravur was done with seven policemen,” he said. Satheesan said rescue operations were carried out instead by the boats of fishermen sent by S Sarma, CPM's Vypeen MLA. “There was not even an ambulance to take old and ailing patients to the hospital,” he said. “I could do nothing but stand helpless as two corpses were taken in a transport bus,” he added. The topmost officer in Paravur was the tahsildar, Satheesan said. The chief minister, in his reply, said there were two police platoons in Paravur by the second day of the crisis. Satheesan insisted that it was wrong, and when the chief minister repeated the claim, he folded his hands in mock respect.
Chennithala said the Alappuzha collector had not convened a single meeting. “But it has to be said we were in constant touch with PWD minister G Sudhakaran,” he said. Chennithala but was unsparing of other ministers. He said education minister C Raveendranath who was deputed to coordinate relief work in Ernakulam was nowhere to be seen. He also criticised forest minister K Raju's trip to Germany; Raju was to coordinate relief in Kottayam district. “The trip should have been avoided,” he said. The chief minister later clarified that the education minister could not make it because he was ill. Aluva MLA Anwar Sadat, too, said he had received no help from ministers. “One minister had called but that was not to speak about our rescue efforts in Aluva but to tell us that a relative of his was stranded,” he said.
Muslim League leader M K Muneer delivered perhaps the best line of the day. “The LDF was opening dams as casually as opening liquor bars,” he said. His sharp sarcasm was also on offer. “Chief minister, we know you well. We know you are not the kind of person who will fall for the flatter of those who say you are this and that,” he said.
The former minister was also the most blunt. Referring to the chief minister's exhortation to contribute to the distress relief fund, he said: “We cannot have a situation where the government does nothing but ask people to keep on contributing.” He also said the government's decision to keep out volunteers after the job has been done was unacceptable. “Relief materials are getting accumulated in the airports, and you have now asked volunteers to keep away,” he said.
