Senior Congress leader and Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan has, on Wednesday, questioned the claim of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan that the state has been benefitted from the recent foreign trip undertaken by him and some of the ministers in his cabinet.

Speaking to media persons here on Wednesday, Satheesan said that Chief Minister Vijayan’s claim that the foreign trip undertaken by him and  some of his cabinet colleagues  was meaningful and many decisions which are beneficial to Kerala have been taken during the visit are not true to facts. Calling all these claims as bluff, Satheesan said the CM’s claim would not conform to reality.

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Stating that the Opposition is never against foreign trips of the chief minister or ministers, Satheesan demanded that Vijayan should come out with a progress card on his previous visits.

He said despite numerous requests for progress reports on foreign trips undertaken by him earlier, there has been no response from the government. The people have every right to know the benefits that the state got as a result of the CM’s and ministers’ earlier foreign trips , he said

 “In 2019, CM Vijayan went to Japan and South Korea and after returning he announced that Rs 300 crore investment would be made by two Japanese companies. Then he talked about a Lithium battery manufacturing plant by Toshiba and another one was a proposal by Toyota. Again in 2019 he went to Holland and there was a big announcement about a project, ‘room for river’. And does anyone know what happened to all these,” Satheesan asked.

“Then came an e-bus proposal from Switzerland and a fisheries project. Does anyone know what the fate of all these announcements is? Nothing has happened.

Everything is on paper only. There was a big investment meeting held in Kochi in 2020 and there came the announcement of Rs 22,000 crore investment , does anyone know about it, now. ” he asked

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had, on Tuesday, claimed that the recent foreign trip by the official delegation led by him benefited the state in more ways than expected.

At a presser here, the CM listed the achievements made in the fields of study and research, creation of job opportunities and attracting investment.

The chief minister said Norway offered support to establish a Maritime Cluster and to launch new projects in fisheries and aquaculture in Kerala

He further said the NORKA Roots signed a memorandum of understanding with Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, one of the UK’s National Health Service Integrated Care Partnerships. Kerala Digital University signed MoUs with Manchester, Oxford, Edinburgh and Seigen universities for collaboration in graphene research, and MoU has also been signed with the University of Edinburgh for joint research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics, the CM added.