Shashi Tharoor: We have lost 64 sq km of coast here alone

I feel betrayed as the Centre has been making big promises to Kerala and not delivering on themrdquo said senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday He is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Thiruvananthapuram The MP added that the state had lost over 64 sq km of lsquoBharat Bhoomirsquo to soil erosion Tharoor added that be it establishing an All India Institute of Medical Sciences AIIMS and National University for Ayurveda or upgrading the National Institute for Speech and Hearing no promises had been fulfilledlsquoCentre not playing fairrsquoAsked what issue has hurt the people and continues to pose a challenge in the state Tharoor said ldquoThe state has a number of serious challenges As far as federalism is concerned there is a perception that the Centre is not playing fair with the state The Left used to harp on that but instead of making that an issue in this election campaign they are actually focusing only on attacking me and attacking the United Democratic Front I do not understand the logic of that but that is one perceptionrdquolsquoCoastal erosion issuersquoTharoor said there were two of issues where he felt betrayed by the state the first being soil erosion ldquoFor a dozen years I have been bringing to the attention of Parliament the ministers and even of the Prime Minister that we have lost 64 sq km of our Bharat Matarsquos Bhoomi from our beaches in this constituency Thiruvananthapuram alonerdquo he saidCongress MP Shashi Tharoor at a campaign event on Monday PicAtul KambleldquoHad that amount of land been taken by a foreign country the whole nation would be prepared to go to war but when it is taken by the sea because of sea erosion there is absolutely no willingness to spend any money to do the basic elementary things required to save coastlines such as building seawalls and groynes which is something that the nextdoor state Tamil Nadu has successfully done But here the state government claims that it has no money and the Central government says it is not its problem and that shoreline protection is the responsibility of the state So between the back and forth between the two nothing has moved the shoreline is steadily eroded and that to my mind is a major betrayalrdquoUnkept promisesElaborating on the ldquosecond betrayalrdquo Tharoor said the BJP government in past 10 years had made only three promises to Kerala but it broke all of them ldquoI am not talking of the general nationwide yojanas which all came everywhere and they also came to Kerala Specific promises made to Kerala are all broken They Centre promised an AIIMS No AIIMS has come Second they promised a National University for Ayurveda in fact the AYUSH minister himself came and said this in his speech in Thiruvananthapuram I am sorry to say when they created the National University for Ayurveda they put that in Gujaratrdquosaid TharoorldquoThird there is a National Institute for Speech and Hearing for those who have challenges in speaking and hearing to study in Thiruvananthapuram I had requested that it should be upgraded to a national university My request was accepted by the BJP government In 20152016 they included this in their budget and mentioned in their budget speech that they would upgrade the institute What happened They did not fulfil that promise For years I kept reminding them and then they went and created a national university in the North EastrdquolsquoNot an encouraging messagersquoldquoThis kind of situation means that the only lsquoModi guaranteersquo we have got here is that the BJP government breaks any promise that they made to Kerala That is not exactly an encouraging message from the BJP to the voters of Keralardquo Tharoor concluded20No of Lok Sabha seats in Kerala