The Kerala unit of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance formally came into being on Saturday promising to implement a second land reform in the State by which land would be provided to all landless people within two years and total eradication of liquor through phases in the next five years if it came to power after the May 16 Assembly elections.
Declaring the formation of the State NDA in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday morning in the presence of the top leaders of all the constituent parties, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “Till now politics in Kerala was an affair between two fronts. Time for an alternative politics has now come.”
The ten-party alliance had been formed for all practical purposes several weeks ago and it has made much progress on the campaign front for the Assembly election in which it is contesting in all the 140 constituencies in the State with the goal of not just “opening account” but to become a decisive force in the legislative process of Kerala.
The main constituents of the BJP-led alliance are the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), political party of several majority communities led by the SNDP Yogam, outfit of the Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, the Janadhipathya Rashtriya Sabha of Adivasi leader CK Janu, the Kerala Congress of former Union Minister PC Thomas and the JSS led by Rajan Babu.
Jaitley also released the Vision Document, the Kerala NDA’s policy paper for the Assembly election, which spoke of programmes and packages for the all-round development of the State and solving the problems being faced by the poor, downtrodden and marginalised people like Dalits and Adivasis.
Releasing the document which put forward a ten-point action plan, the Union Minister said that Kerala, which had traditionally been a prosperous State, could not provide its benefits as the economic model put forward by the left was not progressive and the Congress-led UDF had pursued the same model.
Jaitley said that the phase of Kerala politics revolving between two fronts (CPI(M)-led lDF and Congress-led UDF) had ended. The NDA was there now to provide a third alternative and the State was witnessing a strong triangular contest in the present election, he said, adding that the BJP-led front would repeat the performance it had put up in the last civic elections.
The Vision Document said that there were 60,000 acres of land in the State the lease agreements on which had expired and these lands would be taken over and distributed to the landless people as part of the second land reforms the NDA envisaged. As part of the liquor policy envisaging Prohibition in five years, no new bars would be opened, the paper said.
A housing project in the name of Sree Narayana Guru, Kerala’s social reformer and spiritual leader, Government jobs for all young Adivasis who held Class 10 qualification, 1,000 milk villages and start-ups, interest-free agriculture loans and special budget for agriculture are some of the other points put forward by the NDA’s vision Document.
The policy paper aims to bring up from among the Adivasis in five years 1,000 engineers, 500 teachers, 100 doctors and 50 civil service officials in the next five years. Reopening of the public sector industrial units lying closed, turning loss-making units into profitable ones, creation of special schemes for goldsmiths and fishermen also find mention in the document.
It also includes proposals like a special Rs 10,000-crore package for resuscitating the traditional industrial sector, special employment generation programmes for the youth, a Rs 1,000-crore package for starting new projects and toilet complexes meant exclusively for women at 5,000 locations.