Kerala’s Congress-led Opposition UDF has decided to take its protests over the issue of fee hike in the States self-financing medical colleges to the streets after it was forced to call off its agitation inside the Assembly on Wednesday.
The Speaker adjourned the House till October 17 when it became impossible for him to conduct the proceedings due to the Opposition's noisy protests.
Congress MlAs VT Balram and Roji John ended their 'indefinite' hunger strike in the portal of the Assembly hall on Wednesday afternoon in accordance with this decision. They had started their hunger strike on Tuesday after three UDF MlAs, who have been on a fast over the issue from September 28, were shifted to hospital after their condition worsened.
The agitation on the streets started on Wednesday afternoon itself when youth outfits of the parties in the UDF took out protests marches in the State capital, Thiruvananthapuram, and other places.
Tension prevailed in Thiruvananthapuram city as the police used force to control the protestors when the agitation seemed to be going out of control.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress told newsmen in Thiruvananthapuram that the UDF was not ending the agitation but was shifting it outside the Assembly. He said the front would hold Janakeeya Sadas (people's meetings) in all the 14 districts of the State on October 15 and 16 in order to explain to the people about the stir and its reasons.
"We are not ending the agitation. We are taking it to the streets. A decision on the future course of the agitation will be taken at a meeting of the UDF leadership on the morning of October 17," he said, adding that the MlAs' hunger strike was being called off because it was meaningless to continue there as the House was not in session for the next 11 days.
Chennithala put the blame for the failure of the talks between the Government and the self-financing medical college management on bringing the fees down squarely on Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. "It is the adamant, negative stand of the Chief Minister that had created this situation," Chennithala said.
The UDF had been disrupting the Assembly proceedings over the issue since September 26, the very first day of the session. However, it was not clear how the Opposition was going to achieve success as the admission procedures were to end on Friday and the Government was unwilling to review the fee structure for which it had entered into a pact with the managements.
At the same time, reports came out that certain managements were prepared to relax the fees for a section of students. The UDF, allegedly eager to end its agitation, wanted the Government to make this formal by holding talks with the managements.
However, after talks on Wednesday, Pinarayi said the managements were firm in their position that the fees could not be reviewed.
"The Chief Minister is lying. He lied in the Assembly and to the State. He should be given an award for lying in this manner," said Chennithala. He and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy accused Pinarayi of sabotaging the 'consensus talks' by putting pressure on medical college managements not to make any changes in the already decided fee structure.
The Chief Minister, however, denied the charge saying that the management representatives who had talked with him were firm in their stand not to review the fee structure. "They also said they had no suggestions (on fee relaxation for some students as the UDF claimed). Then what was there for me to doIJ There is no point in blaming me for their unnecessary stir," he said.