Veekshanam, the Congress party’s mouthpiece in Kerala, has taken an oblique dig at Shashi Tharoor MP’s purported praise for the State’s start-up sector.
In an arguably acerbic editorial on Monday (February 17, 2025), the newspaper said that lauding Kerala’s “dismal” industrial growth under the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government was “akin to giving the peace prize to an executioner.”
Without naming Mr. Tharoor, the editorial urged those who praised the LDF’s alleged achievements in the industrial sector not to jeopardise the Congress-led United Democratic Front’s (UDF) chances of success in the upcoming local body elections in Kerala.
The newspaper surmised that Kerala’s political climate was conducive to a UDF win. Anti-incumbency anger raged against the government. Stirring diversionary controversies to douse people’s exasperation with the LDF is self-defeating. Lakhs of UDF activists are toiling overtime to wrest victory from the LDF in the local body polls, it noted.
The editorial argued that entrenched attempts to deflect the government’s glaring shortcomings were tantamount to holding dedicated party workers opposing the LDF on the street in contempt.
The newspaper likened persons singing paeans of praise for the “anti-people” LDF government to those paying tribute to Ravana during the holy Ramayana month.
The editorial listed the LDF’s past “sins”. For decades, the LDF had resisted development and deterred investment.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] boycotted the Global Investors Meet, which the A.K. Antony government convened to spur the State’s economic growth. The CPI(M) had poured discarded engine oil over visiting Asian Development Bank (ADB) officials. It opposed private universities and computerisation. Students’ Federation of India (SFI) activists assaulted diplomat T.P. Sreenivasan for proposing private varsities when he headed the Higher Education Council under the UDF government, it said.
A previous LDF government wantonly demolished tourism infrastructure using bulldozers under the pretext of environmental conservation. CPI(M) activists destroyed cash crops to “conserve paddylands”, the editorial noted.
The CPI(M) promoted labour militancy and endorsed extortionate loading and unloading charges, making it difficult for entrepreneurs to transact business in Kerala. The LDF had turned Kerala into a graveyard for industries. Investor suicides became the order of the day, it argued.
The CPI(M) termed the Smart City scheme a real estate scam mooted by former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. It alleged corruption in the Vizhinjam port development.
Shakespeare quoted
Quoting partly from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Veekshanam said the perfumes of Arabia would not wash the blood of the LDF’s hands for decimating Kerala’s economy, exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis, and fuelling unemployment.
Belatedly, the newspaper argued, the LDF was striving to pick up the threads of lost growth opportunities with no tangible result. It was trying to piggyback on the legacy of visionary UDF leaders the CPI(M) had hounded and reviled during their lifetime.
The newspaper said the LDF’s claims about Kerala’s “astounding” industrial growth were propaganda and hyperbole by a “failed administration.” Those who parrot the false claims did a public disservice. It was shameful to play second fiddle to the LDF, which turned Kerala into a moribund economy and a State in decline.
The newspaper also contested (Mr. Tharoor’s averment) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. was a success. U.S. military planes ferrying Indians in fetters to Punjab told a different and profoundly humiliating story, it said.
