‘Sack of salt dipped in water’: Pinarayi, Kodiyeri slam Congress protests towards SilverLine

By Express News Service

KASARAGOD: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday accused the Congress of attempting to perpetrate violence and unrest in Kerala underneath the garb of protests towards the Ok-Rail’s SilverLine challenge.

On the identical day, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan dismissed the Congress’s protests by calling the occasion a “sack of salt dipped in water”.

In a tweet, the Chief Minister drew parallels to the Congress’s protests with the killing of 5 CPM members by Congress employees in Kasaragod’s Cheemeni in 1987.

On March 23, 1987, after the polling for the Assembly election, CPM activists Ok V Kunhikannan, P Kunjappan, Alavalappil Ambu, C Koran, and M Koran have been tallying the turnout within the occasion workplace, the place Congress employees shut the doorways and home windows and set the constructing on hearth. When Kunjappan jumped out of the window, he was hacked to dying by the miscreants ready outdoors. Others died contained in the workplace.

“Today is the 35th anniversary of the Cheemeni Massacre in which five CPI(M) comrades were torched and hacked to death by @INCIndia miscreants. Upholding their memory, let’s pledge to resist Congress’ current attempts to perpetrate violence & unrest in Kerala,” Vijayan tweeted on Wednesday.

However, his occasion secretary Balakrishnan was dismissive of the Congress, which has lined up an ‘military of vigilantes’ to withstand the SilverLine Project, a semi-high pace railway that goals to attach Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram in 4 hours.

“Let all the armies come. Today, the Left Democratic Front has the strength to face all these armies,” Balakrishnan informed reporters in Kasaragod. “Where is the Congress? It has become like a sack of salt dipped in water,” he stated.

The Congress is protesting for the sake of protesting, he stated. In 2012, the Congress-led UDF authorities proposed a bullet practice between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod. It had plans to increase the standard-gauge line as much as Mangaluru.

T Balakrishnan, the chairman and managing director of Kerala High-Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (KHSRCL), which was spearheading the challenge, had a session for the MLAs. “I used to be then the deputy opposition chief and attended the assembly. He stated the practice can attain Kasaragod in 1 hour and 52 minutes. We didn’t oppose the challenge. We wished it to be carried out, he stated.

The UDF authorities even erected boundary stones to demarcate the land for the initiatives. “Those stones would still be there. We have not uprooted them,” Kodiyeri Balakrishnan stated.

He stated Ok-Rail (Kerala Rail Development Corporation) was now laying the boundary markers to conduct the social affect examine. “The high court had also said there was nothing wrong in laying the boundary stones,” he stated.

But the land could be acquired solely after the land losers could be adequately compensated, he stated.

The authorities has introduced a better compensation for these giving up the land, 4 instances greater than the market worth in gram panchayats and two instances extra in cities. “No one’s land will be acquired by force or by going to war with the people,” he stated.

He stated the Union authorities had given its in-principle approval for the challenge, following which the Detailed Project Report was ready. “The final approval of the Union government will be needed after completion of other processes, including the acquisition of the land,” he stated.

The CPM state secretary stated related initiatives have been being carried out in eight different states, dominated by each the BJP and the Congress. “But they are stonewalling the project only in Kerala. Not just SilverLine. They are opposing the Sabari rail line, too,” he stated.