Kerala Assembly election 2021: Amit Shah to lead roadshows and rallies in Kanjirappally, Malampuzha

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be a part of four events in Kerala on Wednesday as the single-phase polls in the state draw closer. Shah, who has been busy campaigning in Assam and West Bengal, where his party is in a direct fight with Congress and the Trinamool Congress respectively, took part in a roadshow early on Wednesday. The home minister will visit Kanjirappally next where he will address a public meeting at 12.45 pm. From Kanjirappally, Shah, arguably the most influential campaigner for BJP after PM Modi, will move to Chathannoor for another public rally before concluding his day with a roadshow in Malampuzha at 4.30 pm. Under the Modi-Shah leadership, the BJP breached the Left citadel in Tripura in the 2018 Assembly elections in which the NDA won 44 of the total 60 seats. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government under Pinarayi Vijayan is squaring off against the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). Leaders from both Left and Congress leaders have targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their campaign speeches. On Tuesday, CPM leader Sitharam Yechury kicked off his Kerala campaign and alleged that the Centre had gone all-out to “misuse” probe agencies to destabilise the Left government in Kerala but failed. The former general secretary of CPM said the BJP knew the Left and the LDF were the only alternative and they were using central probe agencies against them. “They went all out and failed in the last five years. They will try again and you have to fail them,” he said addressing a rally in Nileshwaram in the northernmost Kasaragod district in Kerala. Similarly, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also alleged that the central probe agencies, which should function as per established norms, were being misused “to destabilise state governments ruled by opposition parties". On Tuesday, Vijayan took to Twitter and announced a Rs 5000-crore coastal development package, Rs 2500-crore Kuttanad Package, a comprehensive coastal housing scheme, increase in coir production to 70,000 tonnes, the yield of paddy to 45 tonnes per hectare and coconuts to 80 per palm. Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi upped the ante on Tuesday, saying if the NYAY scheme is successful in Kerala, his party will implement it across the country. The Wayanad MP said he wanted to test the scheme, first mooted during the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in Kerala. “Kerala is going to show the rest of India how to fight poverty once and for all. We have to demolish this wall of poverty. We can take advantage of the strength, dynamism and intelligence of the people of Kerala,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. Kerala’s 140-member Assembly goes to polls in a single phase on 6 April and the results will be out on 6 May.