Kannur, Apr 26 (PTI) CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Tuesday said the protests against the K-Rail in Kerala were being organised by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the BJP and were purely political in nature.

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Balakrishnan said the land owners of the regions where the alignment of the proposed K-Rail project falls, have taken a positive attitude towards the project but not the opposition political parties.

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"The protests against K-Rail are being organised by the UDF and the BJP. The landowners in the region where the proposed alignment of the K-Rail falls, have a positive attitude towards the project. But the UDF and BJP are uprooting the survey stones and their agitation is purely political," Balakrishnan told reporters here.

He was reacting to an incident that happened in Kannur on Monday where certain landowners protested against the agitation of the BJP and the UDF uprooting the survey stones.

"People have started questioning the BJP and the UDF not to uproot the survey stones. If it's done by some landowner, we can understand. But that's not the situation here. People might have protested against those political parties. It's natural," Balakrishnan said.

He reiterated that the concerns of the landowners will be addressed.

"The government has already assured four times the market price in Panchayat areas, two and a half times the market price in Municipality regions," he added.

The SilverLine rail corridor, envisaged to cover a 530-kilometre stretch from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod, is estimated to cost around Rs 64,000 crore. The project aims to make transportation easy along the entire north-south of Kerala and reduce travel time to less than four hours as against 12-14 hours.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)