Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 2 (IANS) The Nava Kerala Survey, being conducted by the Kerala government at a cost of Rs 20 crore, is nothing more than an instrument for the CPI(M)’s political campaign aimed at the forthcoming Assembly elections, senior Congress leader Cherian Philip said on Friday.

He said the selection of an 85,000-strong volunteer force to carry out the survey was done through local CPI(M) units.

He alleged that what is being projected as a government initiative is, in effect, a mass outreach programme of the CPI(M), which suffered significant setbacks in the recent local body elections, now being conducted at public expense.

Pamphlets exaggerating the government’s development achievements are being distributed to every household as part of the exercise.

Philip said that if a genuinely objective survey were conducted to assess public opinion, it would amount to an indictment of Kerala’s development collapse.

He alleged that proclamations such as “extreme poverty-free Kerala” and “complete digital literacy” were made on the basis of fabricated survey reports.

He further alleged that the second Pinarayi Vijayan government had effectively buried several key missions that were part of the LDF’s flagship Nava Kerala Karma Padhathi, including LIFE, Aardram, the Education Mission, Haritha Kerala, and Rebuild Kerala.

Though events such as the World Kerala Assembly and Global Investors’ Meets were organised to attract foreign investment, he claimed that industrial investments have remained confined to memoranda of understanding, with little actual implementation.

“Kerala is in reverse gear in agriculture, with declining production and productivity. A severe deterioration in education standards has forced students to migrate out of the State, while government hospitals have become ‘filthy cattle sheds’, pushing the vast majority of Keralites towards exploitative private healthcare,” added Philip.

He further alleged that once-promising sectors such as IT and tourism have been reduced to a state of collapse.

Despite Kerala’s cumulative public debt touching Rs 5 lakh crore, Philip said there were no major development projects worth highlighting.

He described K-Rail as a “mere propaganda fraud,” said K-FON was largely unusable, and alleged that most public sector undertakings are incurring massive losses.

The government’s flagship financing mechanism, KIIFB, he claimed, has turned into a “white elephant.”

Incidentally, Philip, until 2001, was the closest aide of top Congress leaders like A. K. Antony, Oommen Chandy and others, but he quit the Congress and contested against Chandy in 2001 as the Left independent candidate and contested two more elections under the Left in 2006 and 2011, but lost.

In 2021, he returned to Congress and was now the “bitter critic” of the CPI(M).

–IANS

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