Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress’ Kerala unit on Monday slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s trip to Europe, terming it nothing but one wasting the state’s resources as nothing so far has come out from previous similar trips.:
Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan told the media that there is no transparency in this trip of Vijayan, ministers, their families, and officials.
“We, the Opposition, do not know why he has gone, the people do not know what’s the purpose of this visit. There is absolutely no transparency. It’s from media reports that we hear that he has gone to attend Loka Kerala Sabha meetings,” he said.
The Loka Kerala Sabha was formed by Vijayan soon after he took over in 2016 and is basically a meeting of the diaspora. Three editions were held here when the rich and mighty of the diaspora attended and this came under heavy opposition onslaught, including the boycotts, on the grounds that it does not address the real diaspora, who are the ones who work hard, especially in the Middle East.
“We all know Vijayan had made similar trips in the past and we were told Rs 300 crore investments will take place and the fact of the matter is not even Rs 3 crores has come as investment. What we oppose is everything is kept under wraps. No one here knows what’s the agenda for these trip, what are being discussed and what is the follow up and what happened on account of the few such visits he undertook,” Satheesan said.
Vijayan is accompanied by his wife, and his young grandson, state Education Minister V. Sivankutty is accompanied by his wife Parvathy, and there is a batch of officials also.
“We are not opposed to foreign trips, but what we want is as such the people are not very happy with such things, hence everything should be transparent on why and what is the benefit for spending so much of money. We want an explanation to all these,” said Satheesan.
Meanwhile with criticism being aired in the media, Vijayan, presently in London, informed the meeting that the expenses for the tours is met by the Loka Kerala Sabha global chapters of the respective places.
He had left for Norway, hours after the funeral of his party and politburo colleague Kodiyeri Balakrishnan at Kannur last Monday.
Following the demise, Vijayan and the Ministers dropped travelling to Finland, while the officials attended.
The entire team returns to the state capital after winding up the United Kingdom trip on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, social media is buzz with activity over the trip and a TV channel came out in its weekly satire episode clearly asking was the trip an essential thing for the families and asked a question, what would the youth wing of the CPI-M done, if such a trip was undertaken by a Congress Chief Minister.
–IANS