Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan: Left-ruled Kerala is missing from the list of states to get flood relief assistance from central fund.

The Narendra Modi government has decided to release fund to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore to seven states affected by flood last year. Kerala, which was ravaged by floods in both 2018 and 2019, failed to make the list of the beneficiary states for the second time.

A Union Home Ministry statement on Monday said the Centre approved the release of Rs 5,908.56 crore to seven states. These states are Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.

Of these, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh are BJP-ruled states. Madhya Pradesh is under a Congress government while Maharashtra is ruled by a tri-party alliance of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.

The decision to release fund for these seven states was taken by a high-level committee chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. It is not yet clear why Kerala, which saw devastating floods in 2018 and massive one in 2019.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was also present in the meeting, which was attended by senior officers from agriculture ministry and Niti Aayog.

Kerala had sought flood relief package from the Centre saying that damage caused to the state by 2018 floods was of the tune of Rs 40,000 crore. The 2019 floods caused a damage of over Rs 2,000 crore in Kerala.

Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac was reported to have expressed disappointment over Centre's decision not to consider the state's case for a relief package from the National Disaster Response Fund (NRDF). He called the decision as "unfortunate".

Kerala is under Left rule. The ruling Left Democratic Front has been in political confrontation with the BJP-led Narendra Modi government of the Centre over a range of issues including implementation of the Sabarimala verdict of the Supreme Court, revoking Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and proposed pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Recently, the Kerala Assembly passed resolution against the CAA. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called the adoption of anti-CAA resolution by Kerala Assembly as anti-constitutional. In a war of words, Prasad jabbed Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan saying he should get better legal opinion over matters of significance.

The central government had earlier released an financial assistance of Rs 3,200 crore to four flood-affected states. Those states were Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar. Of these three (including Maharashtra) were then under the BJP-led NDA rule.

In the latest move, Karnataka has got the maximum Rs 1869.85 crore as flood relief assistance followed by Madhya Pradesh which got Rs 1749.73 crore, and Maharashtra Rs 956.93 crore.