Cong MPs await Centre’s approval to release discretionary funds for Wayanad

Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 4
A stupendous rush by Congress MPs to release money from their respective Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) funds for relief work in Wayanad is likely in case the devastation caused in Kerala district by the landslide is declared a “calamity of severe nature” by the Centre.

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• Chinese Premier Li Qiang sent a message to PM Modi, conveying condolences to the families of deceased in the Kerala landslides
• On behalf of the Chinese government, he expressed “heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families and injured”

While top party leader Rahul Gandhi has resigned from Wayanad, the party has announced that Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi, the general secretary of the Congress, would contest from Wayanad. As a result, Wayanad has now assumed an importance similar to that of two old Gandhi family bastions of Amethi and Raebareli. Congress MPs are impatiently waiting for the government to declare the Wayanad tragedy as a “calamity of severe nature” so that they can help in the reconstruction work in the district and endear themselves to the Gandhis.
Any MP can give consent for the use of their MPLADS funds up to Rs 1 crore per annum for the rehabilitation and reconstruction works in areas affected by natural “calamity of severe nature” declared by the Centre in any part of the country.
Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has already urged Home Minister Amit Shah to declare the Wayanad landslides as a “calamity of severe nature” under the MPLADS guidelines.
Wayanad does not even have an MP of its own at this point of time, not to speak of MPs from other constituencies releasing money from their MPLAD funds for relief works in Wayanad.