Kerala legislators to visit Gujarat to study development initiatives

NEW DELHI: At a time when Congress is all out to puncture BJP's claim over Gujarat model of development, a group of legislators led by senior ministers from Congress- ruled Kerala are visiting the Narendra Modi state next week to study urban development initiatives undertaken there.

The tour of the legislators is being organised by Kerala Legislative Assembly Subject Committee on Local Administration, Rural Development and Housing, in which legislators from Congress, CPI (M), Muslim League, Kerala Congress-Mani, CPI and National Secular Conference are members.

The 11-member team headed by state Rural Development Minister K C Joseph, Finance Minister K M Mani, Urban and Minority Affairs Minister Manjalamkuzhi Ali and Panchayat and Social Welfare Minister M K Muneer will reach Surat on December 12 where it will hold discussions with state government officials on implementation of sewage system in the city.

While Joseph is a senior Congress leader, Mani is the head of the Kerala Congress (Mani), a minority Christian offshoot and key ally of Kerala's ruling United Democratic Front (UDF). Both Ali and Muneer belong to Muslim League.

K Achuthan (Congress), C Mammootty (Muslim League), P T A Rahim (National Secular Conference), V Sivankutty, P Sreemakrishnan, K V Vijayadas (CPI-M) and E K Vijayan (CPI) are also part of the committee.

According to the schedule, the legislators will also visit "some places of tourist importance" in Surat before heading for New Delhi the next day.

The senior leaders' tour to Gujarat to study its urban development initiatives comes days after Congress released a 32-page document carrying statistics about Gujarat's performance on various paradigms. Union Minister Kapil Sibal had called Modi's state as "most indebted state of India".