Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday wrote to his Telangana counterpart A Revanth Reddy, expressing his disapproval over the latter’s alleged “personal 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, claimed that the reign of the Communist Prime Minister was over, borrowing a popular dialogue in a film of his.
This week, Reddy also issued a six-page statement, criticizing the Kerala Cabinet for relying on “outdated data” and comparing its achievements with those of Telangana.
“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 stand of making personally insulting remarks to settle political differences,” CM Vijayan wrote.
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The Kerala CM said that he does not intend to get into a debate on the performance of the Congress government in Telangana and that the people of the state will evaluate its track record. He stressed 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.
CM Vijayan refuted his Telangana counterpart’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 Left Democratic Front (LDF) government from 1987 to 1991.
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 ahead in the startup sector and this has been widely acknowledged,” CM Vijayan wrote in the letter.
He also rejected the Telangana CM’s accusations that his government did not criticize the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre. Vijayan said his government is waging legal battles in the Supreme Court against the Center invoking the state’s rights under Article 131.
The statements by the Communist and Congress ministers come against the backdrop of a heated electoral contest primarily between the CPM-led Liberal Democratic Front and the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala. Reddy campaigned for several United Democratic Front (UDF) candidates in the state. Voting in Kerala is scheduled to take place on April 9.
