Even on the day the ASHA workers cut their hair in desperation, the LDF government had nothing but ridicule in store for them. "The hair that has been cut should be sent to the Central government through the union ministers from Kerala," Labour Minister V Sivankutty said in a Facebook post on Monday.

On the 50th day of their indefinite strike, agitating ASHA workers demonstrated their anger against the apathy of the LDF government by resorting to a mass tonsuring of heads.

Sivankutty persisted with the state government's argument that the solution to the troubles of ASHA workers is in the hands of the Centre and not with the state. "Those who had tonsured their head in front of Secretariat should have staged their protest n Delhi," he said.

The minister also repeated the charge that the ASHA agitation helmed by Kerala ASHA Health Workers' Association (KAHWA) had been infiltrated by the BJP. "The local leaders of the BJP have burrowed their way into the agitation," Sivankutty said.

He was resentful of the ASHAs' decision to accept the support of the BJP. "ASHA workers will not get any benefit just because union minister Suresh Gopi provided them with umbrellas and rain coats," the minister said. Gopi's gesture came after the police pulled down the tarpaulin sheet the agitators had used as cover against the blistering sun and rain.

Sivankutty said that it had been days since the state government had written to the Centre asking that scheme workers like ASHA workers and anganwadi workers be given the status of workers and provided greater benefits on the basis of this. "We have not received any reply till now," the labour minister said, and added: "If they have the will, union minister Suresh Gopi and George Kurien should apply pressure on the Centre and achieve these demands."

Sivankutty also repeated the usual CPM arguments that it was the Pinarayi government that had raised the ASHA honorarium from ₹1,000 in 2016 to the current ₹7,000. What the inister failed to mention was that the work load of ASHAs had more than doubled after the lauch of the Aardram Mission in 2019.

Sivankutty also said that it was wrong to say that ASHA were getting only ₹7,000. He said that ASHAs who worked could get up to ₹13,200 including telephone allowance. "Of this ₹10,000 is the state's share," he said.

In fact, one of the complaints of ASHA workers is that they are too overworked to be able to secure even half the incentives. The mobile allowance of ₹200 is a pittance considering that the poorly paid ASHAs themselves will have to purchase the costly Android phones they have been told to use to enter all the daily information they collect during their house visits as part of the state's comprehensive healthcare mission (Aardram). Recently, anganwadi workers, after they began an agitation in front of the Secretariat, just like ASHAs, were told that the state government would purchase Android phones for them.