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Nayanar seeks White Paper on debt

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 25. The former Chief Minister, E.K. Nayanar, has demanded a White Paper on the Rs. 16,000-crore debt that the State Government had run up over the last three years.

In a statement circulated at his news conference here this morning, Mr. Nayanar pointed out that the Antony Government had taken the State's debt burden from Rs. 23,000 crores to Rs. 39,000 crores during the last three years.

The Government had the duty to explain to the people how the money was spent.

The Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, should do this before his `yatra' reached the State capital, he said.

Referring to Mr. Antony's plea that the Lok Sabha poll should be treated as an opportunity to evaluate the performance of his Government, Mr. Nayanar wanted to know if Mr. Antony would step down if the poll verdict went against the UDF.

The people, he said, were witnesses to the failures of the UDF Government and would vote with full realisation of that.

The former Chief Minister found nothing new in Mr. Antony's statement that the CPI(M) had become obsolete and said nothing better could be expected from someone who was an born anti-communist.

Mr. Antony's `rath yatra' from Kasaragod would not save the UDF. He would not be able to cover up the failures of the UDF Government by merely blaming the CPI(M).

Not even his own partymen were in agreement with him on that. Several UDF leaders such as K. Karunakaran, K. Muraleedharan, P.K. Kunhalikutty, R. Balakrishna Pillai and K. P. Unnikrishnan had come out saying that the CPI(M) was still relevant, he pointed out.

Mr. Nayanar called upon the people of Kerala to vote overwhelmingly for the LDF. He was putting out the appeal because he was leaving for Delhi for treatment.

Mr. Nayanar has so far attended only one campaign meeting of the LDF in Thiruvananthapuram.

Although doctors have promised to send him back before May 5, he might have to be away from Kerala longer than that, a wistful Mr. Nayanar said.

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