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The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretariat on Sunday signalled that eradicating poverty at the household level will be central to the ruling Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) campaign narrative for the upcoming local body elections. CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan also dangled the prospect of increasing the monthly social welfare pension from ₹2,000 to ₹2,500, with the rider that the Union government end its “financial embargo” on Kerala and release the ₹2 lakh crore obligatory federal funds constitutionally owed to the State. Mr. Govindan said poverty eradication is within the government’s easy reach, given that the NITI Aayog pegs Kerala’s poverty at 0.5% of the State’s population. In contrast, in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Govindan said that an estimated 28% of the population reeled under the daily deprivations—homelessness and lack of livelihood means, education, piped drinking water, electricity, health care, toilet facilities and rationing system. He said United Democratic Front (UDF)-controlled district panchayats, Corporations, municipalities and grama panchayats were at the forefront of the apolitical and bipartisan community effort to eradicate extreme poverty, which involved lakhs of volunteers, including Kudumbashree workers, Accredited Social Health Activists, Anganwadi workers and residents’ association. He said the LDF would follow the same model to erase poverty in Kerala. “The people’s movement for poverty eradication will dovetail with the LDF’s local body election campaign,” he said. Mr. Govindan said the LDF did not eradicate poverty with the swish of a magic wand, as touted by Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan. “In Ernakulam, the Congress-ruled district panchayat felt harried that it could not declare the district poverty eradicated because of the anomalies concerning an individual beneficiary. The Cabinet resolved the issue at a stroke, enabling Ernakulam, the Opposition leader’s home district, to join the November 1 declaration,” he added. Seat-sharing LDF convener T.P. Ramakrishnan stated that the ruling coalition has finalised its seat sharing and set its local body electioneering in motion. He said the LDF would build its local body campaign on the government’s achievements and its vision of a modern, poverty-free polity driven by a knowledge economy. Mr. Ramakrishnan said social welfare and development would take precedence over provincial and national politics in the local body campaign. “Livelihood and development issues would edge out muckraking political campaigns and petty politicking,” he said.
