Thiruvananthapuram : State Congress president K.Sudhakaran on Saturday warned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan against going forward with the K-Rail or SilverLine project as it would eventually turn out to be his “Waterloo”.
“If Vijayan doesn’t understand the pulse of the people here and their attitude towards K-Rail, what happened in Bengal will happen to Vijayan here and at the end the last bastion of the CPI-M in the country also will go out of the window. K-Rail would be Vijayan’s Waterloo,” said Sudhakaran.
Vijayan, he said, is fooling people by saying that commercial banks will provide loans to those people whose land have been marked by the K-Rail.
The Chief Minister is misleading people and even though he has been claiming it, the banks have not said any such thing. He is just trying to cheat the people, said Sudhakaran.
“No force in Kerala — be it police or Army — will be able to turn away the protesters, as they are fighting a valid fight. We will be with the people and will go to any extent to see that the project gets stalled,” added Sudhakaran.
Leader of Opposition V.D.Satheesan said the Congress-led UDF has taken up the protest against K-Rail and the people have realised that this project will bring more harm than good.
“The people’s strength is our strength and no force or threats will deter us as we are determined to see that the protests will end only when the project is shelved,” said Satheesan.
If completed, the K-Rail project will see a 529.45 km corridor connecting Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod with semi-high speed trains covering the distance in around four hours.
Both the Congress and the BJP says this project is not needed for Kerala given the massive cost which they say will be in excess of Rs 1.50 lakh crore and would be an environmental and economic disaster and would be a huge burden on the next generation.
–IANS