 By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Proceedings in the Kerala assembly were disrupted Thursday after the opposition protested the alleged backtracking of the state government in the Munnar eviction drive just to protect the party offices of the Communists there.
Raising the issue, leader of the opposition Oommen Chandy said the government had done a somersault and succumbed to pressures from within the Left Democratic Front (LDF).
"The people of Kerala supported your moves to evict and now it is crystal clear that your primary interest is protection of your party and party men and not the common man. When it became clear that your party offices would be affected, you made a hasty retreat. The people of Kerala wish to know what happened to the ideology of Achuthanandan," said Chandy.
The V.S. Achuthanandan government had won kudos from the people after it went ahead with an iron hand to demolish all illegal encroachments in the picturesque Munnar town in April.
After demolishing a dozen resorts and recovering close to 10,000 acres of encroached property, trouble erupted from within the ruling LDF, when the three-member task force picked by Achuthanandan demolished a portion of the Communist Party of India (CPI) office in Munnar.
Achuthanandan had earlier said that about fifty percent of the title deeds given by a revenue official to about 530 people in Munnar in the nineties were bogus and the task force would recover all those. The CPI protested sensing that their office would also come under the scanner as the title deeds were given only for residential and agricultural purposes.
Following this the demolition drive slowed down and after the Kerala High Court also did not give a stay on the drive, the state government came out with an order that party offices and religious establishments would not be touched, even if they were on encroached property.
A LDF liaison meeting recommended Wednesday that the Kerala government accept all the title deeds issued by the revenue official based on the recommendation of the land assignment committee in Munnar.
When Achuthanandan got up Thursday to speak on the issue, the entire opposition trooped out of the house.
"All that I said is there were some title deeds given by the revenue official which were fraudulent and we will not sit idle on that. Your actions are only going to help the land mafia. We all know how many fraudulent title deeds your government gave when in power in yesteryears. We are determined to go ahead with our eviction drive," said Achuthanandan.
Speaking to IANS later, Chandy said the high court had already asked for the copies of all the title deeds given by the revenue official.
"You wait and see the court is going to come down heavily on the partisan manner in which this government has gone about its eviction drive," said Chandy.
Munnar is situated at an altitude of 1,600 m in the Idukki district of Kerala.