P Rajeev, the young Minister for industries in Kerala, lambasted the Kitex Group and its chairman Sabu M Jacob on Saturday for distorting the image of the State in front of the nation.
Speaking to reporters at Ernakulam, Rajeev belittled the charges made by Jacob that the latter’s factory was raided by various departments of Kerala 11 times since the Left Democratic Government led by Pinarayi Vijayan assumed office for the second time in May 2021. “The industries department has no role in the raids. As far as I know there were no raids other than visits by the officials for routine inspection,” said Rajeev, the lone minister from Ernakulam district in the Vijayan cabinet.
Jacob had declared lasty week that his Kitex Ltd was withdrawing from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) he had signed with the Government of Kerala for an investment of Rs 3,500 crore over the next three years which would have created 35,000 jobs in Kerala. The latest news is that the Kitex Group has been offered all facilities by the Government of Tamil Nadu to set up the unit in the neighboring State.
Rajeev said he has asked the bureaucrats in his department to speak to Sabu M Jacob and find out the real issues. But the minister blamed the industrialist by charging that the latter was making a mountain out of a molehill.
“The Kerala Government has signed only a Letter of Interest with the Kitex Group and not a MoU. If they do not want to go ahead with the project let it be so. There are so many industrial and business groups waiting to make big time investment in the State.” Said Rajeev.
Sabu ,on his part, said the response of the Minister or the Government were not in the right spirit. While major political parties like the Congress and the Muslim League chose to look the other way, Sabu got a surprise on Saturday as the BJP came out in the open extending support to the Group.
“Kerala is facing the worst kind of unemployment in its history. But the Pinarayi Vijayan government is driving out industrialists from the State and this is really shocking,” said K Surendran, president of the Kerala BJP, who is under the scanner of the State Police in connection with the seizure of unaccounted money worth Rs 3.5 crore and also for threatening a candidate to withdraw from the race in Manjeswaram assembly constituency during the 2021 assembly election.