Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M.V. Govindan on Saturday described the Revised Budget presented by Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan on Friday as the “opening speech” to total privatisation.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Govindan said that while the Budget featured a glut of projects, the question remains where the government would find the money for them. In a nutshell, the Budget betrays the people of Kerala, while seeking to gift the State’s wealth to corporates, Mr. Govindan said.

Govt. employees

The Budget has nothing that gives hope to the youth of Kerala. For government employees, it seeks to upset pay revision and the leave surrender facility, he said. “The Chief Minister claims to be a Nehruvian Socialist. But closing down public sector enterprises and handing over their assets to corporates goes against the grain of Nehruvian Socialism,” he said.

Major schemes in the Budget, including the Southern Kerala Economic Corridor and Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Corridor, Mission Samudra and Land Reforms 2.0 are designed to promote privatisation, the CPI(M) State secretary alleged. He also alleged that Mr. Satheesan, as the Leader of the Opposition, had promised to implement the UDF’s election promise of hiking the social security pensions to ₹3,000 in the first Budget. But the Budget had no mention of it, he said.

The UDF is destroying the Left alternative for which is Kerala is acclaimed. Instead, it is promoting ‘right-wing privatisation’ and plunder of public wealth in all sectors, he said.