Thiruvananthapuram: Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) president K. Muraleedharan has criticised the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government's decision to restrict the debt waiver scheme for Wayanad farmers to include only the families of those who committed suicide.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Muraleedharan said that the restriction would only encourage more suicides instead of solving the farm crisis. He singled out two stipulations in the debt waiver scheme announced by the LDF Government as soon as it assumed office.

Under the prescribed rules, the farmers were required to prove that the loans were utilised for agricultural purpose and submission of the police FIR relating to the suicide.

He said that most often, suicide cases were under-reported and according to his calculations, hardly one-tenth of the total number of suicides would have been reported to the police.

He said that there was nothing to stop the Government from announcing a comprehensive debt waiver scheme for the entire farm community in Wayanad.

He said the LDF Government was now announcing schemes by merely changing the names of projects.

Thus Express Highway had become North-South Highway. "We would also like to know the LDF Government's stand on Smart City project and mineral sand-mining," he said.

Mr. Muraleedharan said the CPI(M) was in the grip of factionalism with the party unable to sort out the dispute relating to the allocation of portfolios. The UDF was accused of factional fights, but it took one year for factional feuds to emerge when the UDF assumed power in 2001. The faction fight in the CPI(M) had assumed serious proportions that the Polit Bureau was forced to accept it.

In reply to a question, he said the DIC(K) was of the view that the UDF and DIC(K) were equally responsible for the electoral defeat.

There was no point in criticising any one section. The workers of both the Congress and the DIC(K) could not fully encompass the spirit of the electoral understanding.

He did not subscribe to the view that the DIC(K) alliance had been costly to the UDF. Without the alliance, the Congress and the UDF would have suffered further loses. The UDF leadership itself had evaluated that the coalition had lost its traditional voters and the DIC(K) was not responsible for it, he added. When asked about the prospects of a merger with the Congress, he said that the proposal was not on the party's agenda for the time being. A decision on this would be taken only after consulting the party workers, he said.

Mr. Muraleedharan said that the DIC(K) would take steps to strengthen its functioning. As part of this effort, it had been decided to convene the general body meetings of its district units between June 1 and 17. This would be followed by District Delegates' conferences to be held between July 10 and 18. The party's state leadership camp would be held on August 5 and 6.

The camp would be attended by 500 delegations covering the lower party hierarchy to the top-level leaders.

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