The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Two UDF partners headed for confrontation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 26, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Two UDF partners headed for confrontation

Special Correspondent

RSP(M) sabotaged rehabilitation of arrack workers: JSS

Thiruvananthapuram: The Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Marxist) (RSP-M), two partners of the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), are heading for a confrontation.

This follows JSS leader K.R. Gouri's allegation that the RSP(M) leader and former Labour Minister Babu Divakaran had scuttled the arrack ban and the arrack workers rehabilitation scheme.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Ms. Gouri said the JSS had taken the leadership in getting the arrack workers rehabilitation scheme implemented. The scheme was intended for arrack workers who were displaced following the imposition of arrack ban by the UDF Government in 1995. However, Mr. Divakaran persistently opposed the project, she said.

The JSS demanded action on only two issues while it was in power apart from the implementation of the rehabilitation scheme. The other was the rehabilitation scheme for hawkers in Alappuzha.

She said the UDF lost in Thiruvambadi because it could not poll the sizable number of votes of former arrack shop employees. She said the arrack ban had served no purpose.

Ms. Gouri alleged that IAS officials were more powerful that Ministers under the UDF dispensation, preventing the ruling coalition from implementing its stated policies.

She said the functioning of the Agriculture Department had come to a virtual stand still.

Many of the development projects she had initiated as Agriculture Minister were being discontinued. The former Agriculture Minister addressed the press conference ahead of her party's three-day fourth State conference that began on Thursday.

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