By Ashraf Padanna/Kochi
The powerful Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which leads Kerala’s opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF), has launched a massive campaign demanding land for the landless.
The first target of the agitation was a project promoted by Doha-based NRIs in which ace cricketer Kapil Dev is the international ambassador. An international airport which received all federal clearances recently was another target.
Veteran party leader VS Achuthanandan, the opposition leader in the state assembly, said the party workers would erect huts in the land they ‘occupied’ if the government fails to distribute them to the landless poor.
“If the government tries to beat us down, there would be retaliation.
“There would be two blows for every blow (they inflict on the workers),” he warned while inaugurating the ‘land grab’ agitation at the NRI project site here yesterday.
The workers symbolically occupied the land in the possession of Kochi Medical City Tourism Private Limited at Kadamakkudy area on the outskirts of the city where the former Indian skipper and his NRI associates had announced to build a Rs10bn world-class healthcare centre.
Similar agitations were reported yesterday from all the 14 districts of the state, occupying disputed patches of land, mainly in the possession of private firms and individuals.
“Kapil Dev and the company can go to Mumbai or Gujarat. Give up the dreams to set up the company here,” the 89-year-old former chief minister warned, alleging that the project was aimed at reclaiming paddy land for commercial purpose.
Dr Mohan Thomas Pakalomattom is the chairman of this company, which has Mathew Francis Kattukaran, MP Hassan Kunhi, Jay V Jegannathan, Mibu Nettikadan, Fazal Kazi and Devis Edakulathur, all residents of Doha, as directors.
A 1,000-bed super-speciality hospital was to come up here in the first phase along with a 50-bed Ayurvedic hospital and spa for treatment in the herbal system of medicine and medical-tourism infrastructure to complement them. In the second and third phases, the project envisages medical, dental, paramedical and nursing colleges, a 2,000-seat medical convention centre, research institute, lagoons to encourage fish farming and an eco-friendly park.
The CPI-M workers also targeted the Aranmula International Airport project, which got the nod from him when he was the chief minister, on the same grounds.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is yet to open an electoral account in Kerala, is also on the warpath against this project.
Achuthanandan said volunteers and party workers would enter the surplus land across the state, including those earmarked for major investment projects, and take control in all the 14 districts as part of the agitation.
Interestingly, the CPI-M is the richest party in the state and it runs a host of commercial projects, including shopping malls, convention centres, amusement parks, hospitals, co-operative banks and self-financing professional colleges, many of them in reclaimed wetlands.
Party leaders claimed that about 100,000 people had lined up for the campaign being carried out with participation of the party’s feeder outfits like farmers and farm workers’ unions and Dalits.
Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said disputes about patches of land the CPI-M workers occupied were mostly for the court to decide and the government had nothing to do about it.
“Everybody has the right to stage protests. The police would take action only in the case of any violation of law and order,” he said.
“These cases and these lands were there when they were in power. I would like to know what action did they take.”
Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash said the agitation was unwarranted as the government had already announced Zero Landless (Citizens) Scheme to grant land to 100,000 persons before August 15.
The agitation is aimed at hoodwinking the public and to claim credit for it.
“The previous government had not even been able to identify families eligible for land. We have done that and we will provide land to more than 200,000 persons before the end of the present term (of the government),” he said.