Kollam: It was a game of one-upmanship on show at the inaugural of the Kollam Bypass on Tuesday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and prime minister Narendra Modi tom-tommed their achievements even while shooting veiled barbs at each other.
The chief minister, who was initially disturbed by the 'namajapa' chants of BJP workers at the venue, made a subtle attempt to position himself as the original 'vikas purush'.
"When he saw me first, the prime minister told me that we were not doing many things right in Kerala. I promised him that things will change, and now we have kept our promise," Pinarayi Vijayan said.
The prime minister, on the other hand, made it clear that it was his government's commitment to development that had catalysed projects that were lagging for 20 to 30 years.
This was clearly a reference to the Kollam bypass, the work on which had dragged on for over 30 years.
"When the prime minister told me that we were not doing many things right in Kerala, I asked him for an example. He said GAIL pipeline," the chief minister said.
"He was right. The work on the project was stalled. I assured him that the next time we meet, things would change. I can now say with conviction that we have kept the promise. GAIL pipeline has been realised. Had it not been for the floods we would have inaugurated it long back," the chief minister said.
He then listed out a slew of projects that the LDF government was undertaking, including the hill highway and coastal highway projects.
The prime minister began by congratulating Kerala for its recovery from the floods.
"We have to work harder to rebuild Kerala," he added for good measure. He then spoke of projects in various stages of incompletion.
"These are stalled after announcement for various reasons. Lot of public money is wasted due to cost and time overruns, which is sad," he said. "This culture of wastage of public money cannot continue. We are overcoming this problem," he said and described how he was going about cutting the delays.
"On the last Wednesday of every month I sit with all government secretaries and the chief secretaries of states and review such delayed projects. I was surprised to see that some projects are delayed by 20 to 30 years. It is a crime to the common," he said and added: "Till now I have removed more than 250 projects from the list of delayed projects."