Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday wrote to his Telangana counterpart A Revanth Reddy, expressing his disapproval over the latter’s alleged approach of using “personally insulting remarks” as part of resolving political differences.
Vijayan’s response was part of an ongoing verbal spat with Reddy who, at an election rally in Kerala on April 1, borrowed a popular dialogue starring Mohanlal. narasimhan, In dig in Vijayan.
Adapting the dialogue to target the Kerala Chief Minister, he said, “Your time is up. Your expiry date is over. You don’t have any time to continue. Now, it’s time for the United Democratic Front.”
Later in the week, he also issued a six-page statement, criticizing Vijayan for relying on “outdated data” and comparing achievements with Telangana.
In his reply, the Kerala Chief Minister said that he does not intend to engage in a debate on the performance of the Congress government in Telangana and that the people of the state will evaluate its record.
“In the present reply, which is addressed to a fellow Chief Minister of a non-BJP government, I want to express strong disagreement on the position of making personally insulting remarks to settle political differences,” he wrote.
He added that his administration constantly publishes progress reports, which are available in the public domain, and that such a practice does not only occur at five-year intervals.
Vijayan also refuted Reddy’s claim that his administration was involved in selectively appropriating Kerala’s achievements and downplaying the contributions of Congress chief ministers like K Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy.
Vijayan mentioned that it was the first communist government elected in 1957 that introduced the bill to end landlord control and that the literacy movement in the state was led by the LDF government in 1987-91.
He also went on to list several schemes and programs in sectors like public health, industrial climate improvement and governance that successive LDF governments had brought in and built upon.
“The perception you mentioned about industrial stagnation is stereotypical. Kerala is moving forward in the startup sector and this has been widely acknowledged,” Vijayan wrote in the letter.
He also rejected the Telangana CM’s accusations that his government did not criticize the BJP-led Union government, saying his government is fighting legal battles in the Supreme Court against the Center invoking state rights under Article 131.
