Title - Kerala Didn't Get Expected Projects in Rail Budget: CM

The Congress-led UDF government in Kerala today expressed disappointment over the railway budget saying the state did not get expected projects.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said it was a reality that Kerala did not get the expected projects while one of his ministerial colleagues termed the budget as "totally disappointing" for the state and that it has suffered "utter neglect".

Chandy said due to financial crunch, the number of new announcements in the Rail Budget presented today was low and the share of Kerala too was not up to the mark.

Kerala will press for implementation of the schemes and projects announced in the earlier budgets, he told reporters here.

Earlier, the state Transport and Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed, who is also in-charge of the railways in the state, said Kerala did not expect any major railway project, but this kind of "utter neglect" towards the state was least expected.

The state got only two additional weekly trains to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus and Visakhapatnam and three passenger trains in Rail Budget and only a meagre amount of Rs 53 crore for the rail coach factory in Palakkad, which was announced four years ago.

Mohammed said he along with Chandy will meet Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal to convey the state's grievances.

"Even if we do not get any additional allocation in this Budget, we will ask the Railway Minister to implement the projects announced in previous budgets," he added.

A Thrissur report quoted state president of Socialist Janata Party, M P Verendrakumar as having termed the Railway Budget as disappointing as it has 'totally neglected' Kerala.

He told reporters that the Kerala governments various demands had been rejected in the budget and what had not been asked for had been included.

To a query on the reported threat of state Finance Minister K M Mani to desert the ruling United Democratic Front and join the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF), he said he did not think Mani would leave UDF in the lurch.

Media reports had stated Mani may desert UDF and join LDF with an eye to the Chief Ministership and also that some other UDF partners like K R Gouri's Janathipatya Samrakshana Samithi, M V Raghavan’s Communist Marxist Party and Socialist Janata Party may follow suit.

To a query on his going back to LDF, Verendrakumar said the question of his party leaving UDF did not arise at all.

Now the Socialist Janata is very much in the UDF, he added.

He said that the LDF had unceremoniously ousted his party and the reason for it was not known even today.

There was no discussion in the LDF on any issues among the partners and the CPM imposed the decisions on other parties undemocratically, Verendrakumar added, his party was in the LDF for over four decades.

He said his party had strongly opposed the Build, Own and Transfer (BOT) policy. But CPI(M), CPI, BJP and INC were in favour of it, he added.