Following Kerala Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also encouraged caution against pre-poll surveys, claiming that they are only “opinions” and “that they could change”.
“Survey reports are no reason for the party workers to be negligent about the tasks at hand. However, the opinions of the people coming out are part of such survey reports, and thus the allegations levelled by the opposition are baseless. The LDF government faced many hurdles in the last five years, and despite them, we pushed forward with the development projects,” Pinarayi said.
Ramesh had alleged that it [pre-poll surveys predicting the return of the incumbent government] is the media’s thanks to the LDF government for the Rs 200 Crore advertisement, and such a quid-pro-quo is not media ethics. He added that many of the pre-poll surveys, which predict the LDF returning to power, are an effort to whitewash the many corruptions of the government. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran had claimed that they have had a few survey companies approaching them “with assurance od surveys that will favour Congress if they are adequately compensated”.
On the other hand, Pinarayi Vijayan also hit out at the media for having danced to the tunes of the Opposition Leader. “Everything a government can do has been done in five years. However, the opposition spread lies and the media, which was supposed to present facts, took up the allegations. The PSC issue is an example of that. The opposition and the media propagated that only 95,196 PSC appointments were made. The lies were repeated on a large scale,” he said, adding that some media outlets are becoming part of the UDF.
Earlier, the state government had been reeling under pressure from the many protests organised across the state by PSC rank holders against the unjust backdoor appointments in PSC. Moreover, they were also protesting the lack of government rules to include more government companies under the Public Service Commission.
