COVID restrictions will come only after CPIM's party convention: Kerala LoP

Slamming the Kerala Government over the COVID situation, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan on Wednesday alleged that the restrictions against the disease will be imposed only after the ruling CPI M holds its party convention.

VD Satheesan criticised the state government for not increasing the number of COVID tests in the state.

"COVID restrictions will come only after the CPIM's party convention. The Test Positivity Rate is 14 per cent now. Is the current number of tests sufficient in this scenario? Tests will be increased after the party convention. Increase and decrease of COVID tests are based upon CPIM party convention."

The CPIM district Committee meetings are held across the state. The same will be held in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram on January 14.

The Congress leader's remarks came against the backdrop of Kerala reporting 12,742 new COVID-19 cases during the last 24 hours, as per the state health bulletin on Wednesday. With this, the active caseload in the state has gone up to 54,430. Kerala reported 76 new cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus on Wednesday, taking the tally to 421 in the state.

Twenty-three people have succumbed to coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths to 50,254 in Kerala.

On SilverLine Project, VD Satheesan said, "The Chief Minister is not talking to people, opposition and media. He speaks only to the rich. The Chief Minister should end his silence. The government has conducted data fudging in connection with the SilverLine project. Permission from the Central government and the Railways have not been obtained. With or without the approval of the Centre, there are many reasons to oppose this project. Kerala is supplied with outdated material from Japan. There are a lot of lies on the government website."

There are protests against the Kerala government's ambitious semi high-speed railway project SilverLine. It is believed to be one of the biggest infrastructure projects of the Pinarayi Vijayan government.

The proposed 529.45-km railway line will cover 11 districts of the state connecting Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Kasaragod in the north just in four hours.

( With inputs from ANI )

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