The Congress upped its attack on the Centre and the LDF government in Kerala over the inauguration of the Vizhinjam seaport near Thiruvananthapuram, with party MP Shashi Tharoor accusing official spokespersons of not mentioning the name of Oommen Chandy.
The Vizhinjam port deal with Adani Ports was signed in 2015, when the Congress government was in power in Kerala with late Oommen Chandy as its chief minister.
Tharoor remembered the late Congress stalwart in a post on X.
“On the day of the official commissioning of #Vizhinjam port, recalling the remarkable contributions of late Kerala chief minister @Oommen_Chandy, who pushed this project, signed the original commissioning agreement and initiated the work whose culmination we celebrated today,” he said.
The Congress MP, who was present during the inauguration of the Vizhinjam Seaport along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, complained about Chandy’s name not being mentioned.
“Shame that none of the official speakers even mentioned his name, — and I, who would have, did not get a chance to speak,” he said.
In the post, he attached a Facebook status put up by Chandy in 2015 when the deal was signed with Gautam Adani’s Adani Ports.
“It is a historic moment for Kerala. The #government will provide all the support required to Adani Port to complete the construction of #Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Sea Port within 1,000 days. The government is also committed to ensure that fishermen and local people in Vizhinjam are not adversely impacted by the construction activities of the port,” he had written at the time, as per the screenshot.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala assembly, V D Satheesan, also expressed his ire against the government for not acknowledging the pivotal role played by the previous UDF government led by Oommen Chandy in establishing the port by signing an agreement with the Adani Group and carrying out the initial works.
PM Narendra Modi inaugurates Vizhinjam Seaport
Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially commissioned the Vizhinjam International Seaport on Friday, stating that the capacity of this transshipment hub would triple in the coming years, allowing some of the world’s largest cargo ships to dock smoothly.
In his speech following the commissioning of the ₹8,686 crore project, he noted that 75 per cent of India’s transshipment operations had previously been carried out at foreign ports, resulting in significant revenue loss for the country.
Modi referred to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as a “pillar” of the opposition INDIA bloc and told him and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor both of whom were on the dais, that the inauguration event will give “sleepless nights” to many.