Satheesan accuses LDF govt. of forcing people into debt trap

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan has alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will be leaving his office in the coming months slapping a public debt of around ₹6 lakh crore on the people of Kerala.

He was addressing a public meeting at Kuttiyadi in Kozhikode on Wednesday (February 11, 2026) as part of the United Democratic Front’s ‘Puthuyuga Yathra’, a State-wide campaign ahead of the Assembly polls.

Mr. Satheesan claimed that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government was about to complete its tenure after pushing people into the highest ever debt trap in the history of the State. “It was the Oommen Chandy government which turned around fortunes of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB). It had started making profits then. You need to know that in the past 10 years, the KSEB has incurred a debt of ₹50,000 crore. So far the government has hiked power charges four times. Another increase is in the pipeline,” he said.

Mr. Satheesan also criticised the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for allegations revolving around the collection of funds for the construction of a memorial for one of its martyrs in Kannur district.

Row over speech

Meanwhile, a controversy erupted after news channels aired videos showing Shafi Parambil, Vadakara MP, expressing his displeasure for not being invited to speak during the event. The reports claimed that Mr. Parambil refused to address the gathering after Pramod Kakkattil, District Congress Committee (DCC) secretary, invited Mr. Satheesan to address the gathering bypassing him.

Senior Congress leaders, however, refuted the claims. DCC president K. Praveenkumar and Mr. Kakkattil told the media separately that the event was running behind schedule. It was supposed to begin at 10 a.m., but Mr. Satheesan arrived at Kuttiyadi around one-and-a-half-hours late. Because of the delay, though Mr. Parambil was scheduled to speak after M.K. Raghavan, Kozhikode MP, Mr. Satheesan was asked to address the people instead of him.

However, Mr. Parambil made a brief speech after people in the audience demanded that he address them. The Vadakara MP said that the Kuttiyadi Assembly constituency would be among the 100 seats the UDF was going to win in the next elections.