PRAGOTI

Kudos to Com Gopakumar for highlighting the LDF achievement that has been sought to be blacked out by the state's anti- CPM media . As the advisor to Industries Minister Com Elamaram Kareem , Gopakumar has been personally involved in the efforts to revive the sick PSUs in the state. Please remember that Com Kareem is the target of one of the vilest media campaigns in the state.

This is only one of the several success stories of the LDF government that have been blacked out by the media . Name the poorest of the poor in Kerala and this Govt has done something for his or her betterment . Physically handicapped lottery ticket vendors , unorganized workers, petty traders , fish workers , tribals and migrant labor from outside the state , all have been brought under an unprecedentedly secure social safety net that includes increased pensions and subsidized rice through the PDS .

Com Thomas Issac ,another favorite whipping boy of the media has initiated most of these social welfare measures . Right now he is on the job of extending NREGA to the urban poor .I don't know how many of our left friends outside the state know this . This LDF government has announced that anyone in the state above the age of sixty and falling below the poverty line and not enjoying any other pension will be get a monthly payment of Rs One Hundred.

One may laugh these off as token populist measures . But these small steps are irreversible. It is part of a continuing Communist legacy of reaching relief to the masses even while leading their revolutionary struggles. Yes . Much more could have been attempted . The question of the landless could have been more seriously addressed . The big wealth creating and job generating schemes of the LDF election manifesto could have been more effectively piloted . But from day one of this government , its leading contingent the CPM had to focus a lot of its energies on defending its organizational unity from relentless attacks by the left sloganeering right wing media and its overt and covert supporters.

Ordinary working people are not going to be carried away by the calumny against the CPM
and the LDF. They are aware of what the party and the government has done for them against such heavy odds . Its' the passive middle class consumers of the anti_CPM media who need to be told the truth. For they are the ones who are likely to swallow the lies. So,thank you Com Gopakumar.