PM Modi promises to imprison the dishonest and targets CM Pinarayi’s family

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was singled out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, putting him and his family front and center of the BJP’s state election campaign.

Speaking at Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram party election rallies, the prime minister blamed the state administration for the financial mess it was in.

The chief minister and his daughter are being accused of corruption in relation to the extraction of mineral sand. Had it not been for the Union government’s involvement, this incidence would not have come to light, Modi said at Kattakada in Thiruvananthapuram. He went on to say that the state administration is charged with attempting to shield people connected to the gold smuggling case.

The PM’s claim coincides with rampant speculation that Pinarayi’s daughter might be called in for interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the CMRL pay-off investigation within the next week.

Speaking in Thrissur, Modi gave the victims of the state’s cooperative bank scams the assurance that, should his party win an election, they would get their money back. “Those who commit these frauds will face jail time,” he said.

Modi said that the Left administration in the state was coming up with fresh schemes to plunder the people, alluding to the Karuvannur bank fraud.

“People from middle-class and lower middle-class households placed their hard-earned money in the bank in Karuvannur—money they had saved and deposited there for their daughters’ marriages—and CPM officials stole it from there. The swindle prevented many parents from holding their daughters’ marriages together,” he claimed.

“Pinarayi has been spreading false information regarding the fraud for the last three years. He continued, pledging to give depositors their money back from the money collected from corrupt cooperative banks. “The Modi-led government was the one that recovered Rs 90 crore from the fraudsters,” he said.

Modi said that the corruption of the previous regimes was the reason Kerala’s economy was in a slump. “The government lacks the funds to pay staff wages because the treasury is empty. The whole amount donated by the Center for the State’s Development is being used to repay the loan,” he said.

The chief minister said that the state government had lost a case before the Supreme Court, which ruled unequivocally that the state government’s incompetence was to blame for its financial predicament. “The two main fronts here are not safe with Kerala’s future in their hands,” he said.

Modi claimed that his administration took several measures to combat corruption and that his ten years in office were spotless. He said that in order to beat him, the corrupt parties had banded together. However, I’m not afraid of the dishonest. I’m not going to be soft on them,” he declared.

He went on to say that every vote cast for his party will make the battle against corruption stronger.

He emphasized that “Modi’s guarantee to the people” was included in the BJP’s election platform.

Party candidates Abdul Salam (Malappuram), Suresh Gopi (Thrissur), T N Sarasu (Alathur), and Nivedida Subramanian (Ponnani) attended the Kunnamkulam ceremony.

Candidates G Krishnakumar (Kollam), Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Thiruvananthapuram), V Muraleedharan (Attingal), and K Surendran (Wayanad) attended the meeting in Kattakada.

Actor Sobhana, who was present at the Thiruvananthapuram event, said that Modi’s ability to do the seemingly impossible had earned him a second term in office. She continued, saying that he is now working on a third innings and that the Keralan BJP candidates are capable of achieving his vision for the nation.