India Today ·
Politics
V D Satheesan rejects Adani double standards charge, backs Vizhinjam port
V D Satheesan defended Kerala's support for Adani's role at Vizhinjam port and denied any Congress contradiction. He also set limits on PM SHRI implementation and blamed poor planning for the power crisis.
V D Satheesan on Thursday rejected the charge that the Congress was following double standards on the Adani Group, saying support for the company’s role in operating the Vizhinjam port was in Kerala’s interests. He said the state owned the port and Adani was only the concessionaire operating it.
During a media interaction, a link to which he shared on Facebook, Satheesan also spoke about the PM SHRI school scheme and the power crisis in the state. He said the government would keep the Centre out of the curriculum under the school scheme and described the power shortage as a result of poor planning by the Kerala State Electricity Board.
Satheesan was responding to a question on why the government was supporting Adani in Kerala when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had consistently spoken against the group. Asked whether this amounted to double standards by the Congress, he said it did not.
“So, how can we fight each other at the port? What we can do is safeguard the interests of Kerala, and that we are doing. We are complying with the terms of the concession agreement and supporting the concessionaire as it is in the interests of the state,” he said.
On the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India scheme, Satheesan said there was no provision in the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Centre by the previous Left government to withdraw from it.
“So, we decided that we will not allow the central government to be involved in the curriculum. That is our political decision. We decided that the state will select the schools for implementing PM SHRI. Only on these conditions will we implement the scheme,” he said.
PM SHRI is a centrally sponsored initiative launched on September 7, 2022, to upgrade more than 14,500 existing government schools into model institutions that showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy, 2020.
On the power crisis affecting the state, Satheesan blamed the Kerala State Electricity Board for a lack of planning last year, saying it was aware of the possibility of the El Nio weather phenomenon affecting the state. El Nio is a natural climate pattern in which surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm.
He said the government was treating the crisis as an opportunity to bring in short-term and long-term measures. Overall, Satheesan defended support for the Vizhinjam port project as being in Kerala’s interest, set conditions for implementing PM SHRI, and blamed poor planning for the state’s power crisis.