Overview
- At a press conference, the BJP’s Kerala president dismissed the LDF government’s claim as propaganda and said Union welfare programmes delivered the improvement.
- He cited national figures claiming extreme poverty fell from 16.2% to 2.3% under the Modi government, lifting 17 crore people, compared with 2.72 lakh in Kerala over the same period.
- He pointed to programme reach in the state, saying about 6 lakh families receive 35 kg of foodgrains monthly under PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and 58 lakh people get work through MGNREGS.
- He questioned why Kerala took over a decade and spent more than ₹1,000 crore to address what he said was an already low 1.24% extreme-poverty rate.
- He accused the state of rebranding Central schemes and stalling the PM SHRI initiative, with Kerala set to make an official November 1 declaration and no immediate state response reported.