Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdraw the 'Somalia comment' made during his first leg campaigning in the poll-bound State.

The Prime Minister is expected to return for a second leg tour when he arrives later today in Ernakulam where he will address an election rally.

'STATE HUMILIATED'

Chandy has said that the State has been humiliated by Modi's observations on Sunday during a rally here in which he likened some aspects about Kerala with those in famine- and strife-torn Somalia.

"Is Kerala not a state in India," Chandy asked in a note made public on Tuesday. "Is it not a shame for the Prime Minister to compare one of our own states with Somalia," he wondered.

Kerala is above the national average in terms of economic growth and human development for the past five years, he reminded the Prime Minister.

WRONG COMPARISON

The quality of human resource has received plaudits from the world at large. "Still, you compared the state with Somalia that is reeling under poverty and internal strife," Chandy said.

Modi has humiliated the people of the state with his baseless allegations about the food availability situation in the state.

He seemed to have made the allegation on the basis of an image carried by the media in which a boy belonging to a scheduled tribe was shown as eating out of waste dump in North Kerala.

But enquiries made by the state government had revealed that the featured boy belonged to families of farm labourers who had a steady employment and in possession of an acre of land.

MID-DAY MEALS

He was one among the children being taken to school free of cost in a vehicle and provided with free mid-day meal including milk and eggs two days a week.

But these children used to bunk classes and jump the walls of a waste treatment plant to collect scrap, which they sold to buy food of their choice from nearby hotels.

"I can assure you that no child in Kerala is forced to survive on stale food," the Chief Minister said.

In fact, Prime Minister Modi had used the same speech to target Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the AgustaWestland helicopter scam, which too has set off a controversy.

Related Topics