The Hindu : Kerala News : LDF panel’s directive to Minister, TDB members

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Kerala

LDF panel’s directive to Minister, TDB members

Special Correspondent

Not to speak out too frequently about board matters

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A committee of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala has asked Cooperation and Devaswom Minister G. Sudhakaran and the president and members of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) to observe restraint and not to speak out too frequently about matters concerning the running of the Board.

Briefing presspersons after an LDF State panel meeting here on Sunday, front convener Vaikom Viswan said the LDF leadership was of the view that the words and actions of the members of the Devaswom board and others did not conform to the high standards set for itself by the LDF. He conceded that the LDF-controlled TDB had not succeeded in reversing the state of degeneration into which it had fallen under the rule of the United Democratic Front.

Asked whether the LDF directive amounted to a public reprimand of the Minister, the president and the members or a code of conduct for them, Mr. Viswan said it was neither. To a question if the LDF committee had taken note of the Minister’s claim that there was corruption in the TDB, he said the committee had not studied the question of corruption. The mutual exchanges within the TDB could be due to various reasons, including ego problems. The LDF wanted the persons concerned to put all that behind them and work for the interests of the State and the faithful, he said.

Mr. Viswan came down heavily on the Chengara land stir, and said it was intended only to defeat the LDF’s resolve to provide land to all landless families. The stir was being staged by people who owned land and the government could not allow anyone to indulge in such encroachments into plantations, he said. Asked how the Chief Minister and the Revenue Minister could hold talks with the agitators if the LDF did not view the Chengara land stir as a genuine struggle, the LDF convener said the effort was only to expose the stir and to see how they could be evicted from the estate.

On the objections raised by the Kerala School Teachers’ Association, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), to the budget proposal for deployment of 2,000 protected school teachers to Panchayati Raj institutions, Mr. Viswan said the Finance Minister had made the announcement after consultations within the LDF. The protected teachers were getting salaries without doing any work.

On Mr. Sudhakaran’s statement that self-financing professional colleges would be started in the cooperative sector in all 140 Assembly constituencies in the State, the LDF convener said any such institution would be set up only on the basis of a scientific study.

He, however, added that the cooperative sector had to remain alert to the challenges in the self-financing education sector.

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