Adoor Prakash on Aranmula Airport, A Rejoinder

Cabinet will take decision on Aranmula airport project: Adoor Prakash

The Cabinet would consider the issue of the proposed KGS Aranmula International Airport in Pathanamthitta and take a decision on necessary steps to facilitate its implementation, Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash said here on Monday.

Responding to a question at a press conference here, the Minister said all the allegedly controversial decisions pertaining to the proposed project were taken during the tenure of the previous government controlled by the Left Democratic Front (LDF).

He said he could not understand why the then Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan should now take a stand contradicting what his government had done.

TRANSFER OF OFFICIALS

When asked about the transfer from Pathanamthitta district of the Revenue officials who had raised legal objections against the land transaction involved in this private project, Mr. Prakash said transfers were part of government service.

“Pathanamthitta being my home district, I am personally interested in seeing that this project becomes a reality, because it can contribute to the development of the region. The United Democratic Front (UDF) government supports the idea of this airport,” he said.

Mr. Prakash alleged that the people who opposed the project were not the people of Aranmula, but those from outside.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/cabinet-will-take-decision-on-aranmula-airport-project-adoor-prakash/article4758823.ece

And a Rejoinder

1. Adoor Prakash should realize that his selfish political ambitions in the present communally polarized Kerala government may, given the tilt in political winds blowing, would endanger his political life itself. He, given his background, is disowning his own people and his own heritage. 
2. If the time line of the Aranmula Airport is looked back, in retrospect, there is no doubt that it was a land mafia that started the sequence. Once they were in trouble with local people and law enforcement agencies they pulled up the Airport Plan, succeeded in circumventing the crimes and taking the debate to another level, but the cases persisted, more, the local people don't forget
3. It is the same cases of serious violations, which are of crucial survival value with regard to water balance, heritage, communal balance, that the officers were taking action on, but were punished by the government, which sends wrong signals which shall not go unpunished 
4. Putting all the fault at the doors of former LDF government, as Oommen Chandy with his obvious ulterior motives keeps doing,  cannot stand scrutiny as the LDF leaders have time and again clarified
5. One, the Airport Project was not yet known as to this scale at the time, it was a of a minor scale, two, the industrial area notification etc were the handiwork of a secretary without cabinet approval, what thus remains illegal even now
6. Political compulsions as the Kerala Congress , major force in Kerala behind land mafias, here Josep group, was part of the LDF then is true, but later the scene changed has to be viewed
7. Whatever the agenda of the mafia so long as the people of Aranmula, Kerala as a whole, oppose it, it cannot be made and misadventures shall see very serious consequences.