Taking an aggressive posture against the Centre's nod to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises, the Kerala government has convened an all-party meeting at 4pm on Thursday to discuss the issue. All opposition parties have agreed to attend the meeting to protest against the Centre's move.
Soon after the cabinet decision to lease out the airport to Adani Enterprises was announced on Wednesday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi making it clear that the state will not cooperate with the move. Stating that the Centre's decision is against the wishes of the people of Kerala, the CM requested PM Modi to reconsider the decision to lease out the airport in the capital city under public-private partnership (PPP) model for 50 years. He also pointed out to the PM that a petition against the move was pending in the Kerala High Court.
The Centre's decision, for a change, has brought both the ruling fronts and the opposition UDF on the same page. Except the BJP, all political parties have come out against the move to hand over the airport, spread over 657 acres of prime land.
After the CM, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, too, has opposed the Centre's move. "Thiruvananthapuram airport is an asset for Kerala. We register our strong protest over this deal," said Chennithala. He also pointed out that the state government had appealed that it was willing to take over the airport. "But the Centre ignored it," he alleged.
KPCC president Mullappalli Ramachandran, too, wanted the PM to revoke the decision. "We are totally against privatisation. It has to be revoked," Ramachandran demanded.
It was in 2019 that the Central government decided to privatise six airports in the country. Once Adani evinced keen interest in Thiruvananthapuram airport, the Kerala government, which currently runs the airports at Cochin and Kannur, also floated a company to place a bid. But the Adani firm won the bid by quoting a higher amount.
According to Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran, the Centre's move is one of the biggest scams to hand over the airport to a private party. "This is a big corrupt deal and all of us here will oppose it tooth and nail," he said.
He asserted that the Kerala government has expertise in running airport operations and cited Cochin and Kannur airports as examples.
Even as political parties have joined hands together to oppose the privatisation move, many groups, including the Thiruvananthapuram Chamber of Commerce, have fully supported the decision. They are of the view that privatisation will turn Thiruvananthapuram airport "truly international".
The other airports that are being privatised are the ones in Mangaluru, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Guwahati.
