Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 19 (IANS): Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly V.D.Satheesan on Saturday hit back at State Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal for accusing the Opposition MPs of not being a part of the delegation that met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week to apprise of the state’s financial crunch.

Speaking to the media at the Puthuppally Assembly constituency where a by-election is being held on September 5, Satheesan said the state’s

financial condition is in dire straits due to callous handling of it.

“During 2016-21, the then CPI(M) Finance Minister Thomas Isaac was borrowing left, right and centre. We had in our White Paper of Kerala’s

finances in 2020 pointed out that all borrowings made outside of the State budget will be included. In our latest White Paper also, we had informed of this, but our pleas fell on deaf ears,” alleged Satheesan.

Isaac had borrowed for KIIFB – that was established as the principal funding arm of the government of Kerala in 1999. Its objective is to channelise funds for critical and large public infrastructure projects in Kerala and also for creating a Pension Fund.

Both these were floated in a manner that the borrowings made by them would be outside the state budget, but the Centre has not treated them in that way.

“Isaac always felt that in Kerala there is a change of government every five years and he did all things under the impression that the next

government will be that of the Congress, but in 2021, Pinarayi Vijayan retained power and is now in deep trouble. What has compounded the problems is the extravagance of the Vijayan government and no steps to shore up revenue collection. Now Balagopal is blaming us and our MPs who did not join his delegation to meet Sitharaman. None of the MPs of ours were told and moreover we also had some questions for Balagopal. How can our MPs join a delegation, when they were not asked. The statement that our MPs were invited is false,” added Satheesan.

Satheesan slammed Balagopal after the latter, while explaining that Kerala is going through its worst ever financial crisis, slammed the Opposition Kerala law makers from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for not joining the delegation to meet Sitharaman.

Balagopal pointed out that around Rs 40,000 crore of borrowings have been slashed by the Centre leaving Kerala in deep trouble.