Kerala CM must clarify stand on PM SHRI scheme: BJP

The national executive committee member of BJP, P. K. Krishnadas has demanded that the Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan clarify his position on the Panchayat Minister K. M. Shaji’s statement that the PM SHRI scheme should be “flushed down the drain.”

Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, he said that even two days after Mr. Shaji’s statement, the Chief Minister has remained silent. It was up to him to clarify whether the UDF viewed PM SHRI as an opportunity for academic progress or whether it was something to be ‘flushed down the drain”

PM SHRI is a scheme which was meant to usher in academic excellence in students with the aid of science and technology tools. If this was indeed a scheme to be “flushed down the drain”, it would be an injustice to thousands of indigent students in the State, he pointed out. Opportunities meant for Keralam’s students through Central government schemes should not be denied in the name of political interests, he said.

Mr. Satheesan’s silence in the matter gives more credence to the allegation that the UDF’s policies are decided by the Indian Union Muslim League and Jamaat -e-Islami, Mr. Krishnadas claimed.

He alleged that the manner in which the national song, Vande Mataram, was “dishonoured’ at the State’s official Independence Day celebrations was also part of the religious and divisive agenda of the IUML and Jamaat-e-Islami. The Congress and the UDF is so fully subservient to the religious and communally divisive agenda of the IUML and Jamaat e Islami that the State government thought nothing about defying even an Act passed by the Parliament, he alleged

Mr. Krishnadas further said the physical assault by SFI activists on the woman Vice-Chancellor, also a member of a minority community, at Kalady Sanskrit University campus, has shocked Kerala’s cultural conscience. Despite police being present at the scene, he said, there was no effective intervention to stop the attack or protect the VC. He said that the police chose to take action only after the VC complained to the Governor, who in turn contacted the DGP.

He said that instead of extending support to the VC, the Chief Minister had instead, chosen to question the propriety of the Governor summoning the DGP

The CPI (M) has chosen to take the same position and neither have pointed a finger against the campus violence being unleashed by SFI, he said. The BJP strongly condemned the violence against women and the hooliganism on the campus by SFI, he added.