New Delhi: Even as Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan made his visit to Delhi appear like a positive boost to the state's effort for development in a fresh apparently apolitical drive and met four different ministers including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, the reportedly co=operative attitude of the Centre has been negated by subsequent report that the Centre denied permission to Vijayan for a tour of the Gulf states in the next couple of weeks.
In an official said to have been received by the state government, the Centre's response came via the Ministry of External Affairs, denying permission to the chief minister.
The Kerala chief minister was expected to make a trip to the Gulf countries, in several phases starting with Bahrain, to show case the state’s push for development projects. The itinerary had also included different cities in Saudi Arabia, Muscat and Salala in Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
Minister Saji Cherian was also scheduled to accompany him. The move is also seen by many as a publicity exercise with Kerala’s expatriate population in the region with an eye on the local bodies election due later this year and the state assembly election due by May 2026.
Pinarayi Vijayan was in Delhi on Thursday accompanied by state’s finance minister KN Balagopal, Tourism and Public Works Minister PA Mohamed Riyaz and several senior bureaucrats with a thrust on the state’s development initiatives. The ministers he met included Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Transport and National Highways Nitin Gadkari and Health Minister JP Nadda.
The meeting with the prime minister took place on Friday, where he placed four key demands of the state. Through them, he presented the state’s requirements of assistance and support from the Centre, including those that can stabilise the state’s financial position.
The four key demands included the allocation of flood relief funds for Wayanad where two entire villages were swept away. The chief minister submitted that the relief and rehabilitation package should be given as a grant and not loan.
He asked for the Centre’s support to Kerala to overcome financial stress by mitigating the state's borrowing ceiling imposed by the Centre.
The state further brought to the notice of Gadkari as well as the prime minister the fact that for national highway expansion, Kerala was bearing 25 per cent of the land acquisition cost which other states did not have to do.
Among other items raised by Kerala was also the demand for approving a campus of AIIMS in the site identified for it in Kinalur, Kozhikode.
In view of the fast urbanisation of Kerala, and in order to boost research in architecture in the state, the chief minister made an appeal to the Centre for establishing a School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in the state.