Welfare pensions could have been hiked to ₹3,000 had the Union government provided its share for pension contribution on time, Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M.V. Govindan has said.
Speaking at a meet-the-press programme organised by the Kesari Memorial Journalists’ Trust here on Tuesday, he said the financial siege being continued by the Centre had forced the State to limit the welfare pension hike at ₹2,000 from ₹1,600.
On the other hand, senior Congress leaders such as K.C. Venugopal had been maintaining that the welfare pensions were a means to bribe voters. The Congress leadership should clarify if it subscribed to this view, he said.
The continuance of governance had made it possible for the State government to eradicate extreme poverty in the State. The last Cabinet meeting had decided to eradicate poverty from the State. Welfare pensions provided by the State were among the factors that helped eradicate extreme poverty, he said.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) was hopeful of a landslide victory in the local body polls as the corruption-free governance at the grassroots level had set a model for the country. Delegations from several States had visited Kerala to study the decentralised development model followed in local governance in the State.
In reply to a question, he said various topics under discussion in the State, including the Sabarimala issue, would be discussed during the election, and the State government had nothing to hide. The State government had said from day one that it would not protect anyone involved in the gold theft at Sabarimala. The State government made this stance clear while welcoming the probe by the Kerala High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team. Even now, the State government had the same stance, he said in reply to a question on the arrest of the former Travancore Devaswom Board president N. Vasu by the SIT on Tuesday.
The BJP rejected the High Court-appointed probe and had been demanding probe by a Central agency as they had vested interests in the case, he said. Moreover, a corporate politician who was involved in an alleged ₹500 crore scam in Karnataka had been making the demand, he said, adding that the BJP would suffer the most humiliating defeat in the history of the party in the local body polls.
The covert alliance the Congress had with the Jamaat-e-Islami had influenced the decision-making of the party, he alleged. The CP(I)M had to fight against the communal combine of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) to keep the secular and democratic values of the State, he added.
Published – November 11, 2025 09:29 pm IST
