BJP leader and former union minister V Muraleedharan.
Credit: PTI Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: Amidst the row over the delay on the part of the Centre in allowing financial assistance for Wayanad landslide relief and rehabilitation, a BJP senior leader from Kerala has caused more embarrassment to the party by stating that the loss caused by the landslide was being exaggerated.
Former union minister of state V Muraleedharan's remark that the entire Wayanad was not affected by the landslide and only three wards of a panchayat were affected has triggered the row.
It was while trying to defend the criticisms over the delay in the central assistance that Muraleedharan stated that the landslide's impact was being exaggerated.
The Congress and the CPI(M) strongly reacted to it by accusing the BJP leader of trying to make the sufferings of the landslide that claimed over 300 lives and around 50 still missing.
The Congress and CPI(M) also flayed that even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi came down to Wayanad and personally assured assistance to the affected, those were only publicity stunts.
Meanwhile, the Congress-led United Democratic Front and CPIM)-led Left Democratic Front observed a dawn to dusk hartal in Wayanad on Tuesday to protest against the delay on the part of the Centre in giving the assistance.
Kerala government had submitted a memorandum to the Centre seeking assistance to the tune of Rs. 2,000 crore for relief and rehabilitation of the landslide hit as well as to declare the landslide as a 'national disaster'.
But minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai informed in a letter to the Kerala government's special representative in Delhi, former union minister K V Thomas, recently that there was no provision to declare the Wayanad landslide that claimed over 300 lives as a 'national disaster'.
The Centre however informed the Kerala High Court that it would announce the assistance in this month itself.