Governor's policy address

The final session of the Kerala Assembly under the second Pinarayi Vijayan government began yesterday with the Governor’s policy address. In the introduction to the address, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar said Kerala is moving fast on the path of development and has made significant progress over the past ten years. He said the state is a national model in decentralisation, infant mortality has come down, and major achievements have been made in schemes such as the employment guarantee programme. He also highlighted Kerala’s poverty eradication initiatives. The Governor also read out portions of the policy address that criticised the central government. He said the Centre had reduced Kerala’s rightful share of funds, leading to a serious financial crisis, and that there was no justification for the cuts.

He said the borrowing limit had been reduced by around Rs 4,000 crore, which had negatively affected the health and education sectors. He added that reducing the Centre’s share in the employment guarantee scheme from 100 per cent to 60 per cent was a setback for Kerala, and demanded that the national employment guarantee scheme be continued in its original form. The Governor’s policy address lasted one hour and 52 minutes and appeared normal throughout. However, after the speech, dramatic scenes unfolded in the Assembly. Though the Governor read out the Centre-critical portions prepared by the government, it was alleged that he had omitted certain sentences from paragraphs 12, 15 and 16, which contained strong criticism of the Centre, and that he had added a few words that were not part of the Cabinet-approved text.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan then took an unusual step by intervening directly. He demanded that the portions approved by the Cabinet but omitted by the Governor be included in the policy address, and that the words added by the Governor be removed. The Speaker accepted this demand. While it is not unusual for Governors to skip some portions of a policy address, reading only the beginning and the end is usually treated as having read the full speech. However, adding new words is uncommon and raises constitutional and legal questions. The Chief Minister also read out the portions omitted by the Governor in the Assembly.

The Chief Minister said the Governor had omitted the first sentence of paragraph 12, which stated that, despite social and institutional achievements, Kerala is facing a severe financial crisis due to continuous adverse actions by the Centre that weaken the constitutional principles of fiscal federalism. He also said the Governor skipped the last two sentences of paragraph 15, which mentioned that bills passed by state legislatures have been pending for a long time and that the state government has approached the Supreme Court, which has referred the matter to a Constitution Bench. The Chief Minister also read the last sentence of paragraph 16, saying that while the Governor read it, he added the words “my government believes” to it. The controversy surrounding the policy address is likely to continue in the coming days.