Kottayam: BJP leader and Union Minister of State for External Affairs, V Muraleedharan, on Thursday said the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Congress-led United Democratic Front are engaged in a friendly match in Puthuppally. In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, Muraleedharan said the LDF and UDF have come together as 'Pinarayi United Front' to take on BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the September 5 bypoll.
The minister was addressing an election rally for BJP candidate Lijin Lal at Kooroppada. He said the LDF government, headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, put the people reeling under price rise in further crisis by restricting the free Onam ration kits to only six lakh families of the 93 lakh ration card holders in Kerala.
He said Opposition Leader and Congress MLA V D Satheesan was reluctant to speak about inflation in the assembly.
"Instead of raising such an issue, the UDF and LDF unanimously passed a resolution against the Uniform Civil Code. The opposition leader also kept mum on the illegal payment row involving CM's daughter despite reports of the Income Tax department's verdict on it coming out when the assembly session was on. The session was suspended in the name of Puthuppally bypoll as the two fronts found it difficult to go on with the nexus," Muraleedaran said.
The union minister listed out the welfare schemes being implemented by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre and accused the state government of taking credit for them.
"In Kottayam district alone, 2,33,000 farmers are benefitted from the Kisan Samman Nidhi. As many as 2,345 households in the district were given LPG connections as per the Ujjwal Yojana scheme. As many as 1,0,6000 households were given water connections. Around 50,000 people got jobs in Kottayam under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme," he said.
Farmers are not paid the support price declared by the Centre for paddy. The Kerala government has been deliberately trying to stop people from getting the benefits of the central government schemes, he said.
