Govindan accuses UDF govt. of lurching to the right to flatter RSS

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Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary M.V. Govindan has accused the United Democratic Front (UDF) government of playing second fiddle to the social and economic policies of the “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)- controlled” Central government.

Mr. Govindan told a press conference that Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan faced opposition within his own party for considering N. Seshadrinathan, an “RSS sympathiser”, as Kerala’s next State Election Commissioner, possibly to give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an electoral leg-up during the next delimitation process.

“Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary P.M. Niyas had urged Mr. Satheesan to reconsider the decision and requested Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala to authorise an intelligence inquiry into the nominee’s political background,” he said.

Mr. Govindan said Mr. Satheesan’s “lurch to the right” reflected in the UDF’s Budget proposal to allow corporates to exploit Kerala’s natural resources, including its mineral, water and sea wealth, and give a whopping sales tax reprieve to a liquor major having a near monopoly in the country’s expansive market for low-strength alcohol, chiefly ready-to-drink alcopops.

He said the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had not entertained a similar tax reprieve for branded low-proof liquor projects. Instead, it had referred proposals to allow the production of low-strength alcohol from discarded fruits, chiefly cashew fruit, to the Assembly’s subject committee. “Mr. Satheesan fast-tracked the company’s proposal, triggering suspicions of corruption,” he said.

Mr. Govindan said “flattering the RSS” was the UDF government’s hallmark. Mr. Satheesan had not even uttered a whimper of protest against Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar’s bid to stack the senate of MG University and the Kerala Agricultural University with RSS sympathisers.

Comparably, Local Administration Minister K.M. Shaji saw no anomaly in branding houses built for the homeless with partial PMA