Vijayan hits back at Reddy over ‘personally insulting’ remarks

KErala chief government minister Pinarayi Vijayan on tues wrote to his Telangana vis-a-vis A Revanth Reddy, expressing dissension with the latter’s alleged near of using “personally insulting remarks” as part of settling political differences.Vijayan’s response was part of an ongoing verbal feud with Reddy who, in an election rally in Kerala on April 1, borrowed a popular dialogue from Mohanlal starrer Narasimhan, in a dig at Vijayan.Adapting the dialogue to target the Kerala chief minister, he said, “Your time is over. Your expiry date is over. You don’t have any time to continue. Now, the UDF’s time has come.”Later in the week, he also issued a six-page statement, slamming Vijayan for relying on ‘outdated data’ and comparing achievements with Telangana.The Kerala chief minister, in his reply, stated that he did not intend to get into a debate on the performance of the Congress government in Telangana and that the people of the state will assess its track record.“In the present reply, which is to a colleague chief minister of a non-BJP government, I want to express strong disagreement on the attitude of making personally insulting remarks to settle political differences,” he wrote.He added that his administration has continuously published progress reports, which are available in the public domain, and that such an exercise is not done merely at five-year intervals.Vijayan also rebutted Reddy’s claim that his administration was engaged in selective appropriation of Kerala’s achievements and downplaying the contributions of Congress chief ministers like K Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy.Vijayan stated that it was the first Communist government elected in 1957 which brought in a bill to end the domination of landlords and that the literacy movement in the state was spearheaded by the LDF government of 1987-91.He also went on to list the several schemes and programmes in sectors like public health and improving industrial climate and governance that successive LDF governments brought in and built upon.“The perception you have stated about the industrial stagnation is a stereotyped one. Kerala is moving ahead in startup sector and this has been acknowedged widely,” Vijayan wrote in the letter.He also rejected the accusation of the Telangana CM that his government was not criticising the BJP-led Union government, saying that his government is fighting legal battles in the Supreme Court against the Centre invoking the state’s rights under Article 131.