Kozhikode Mayor A.K. Premajam and the district unit of the CPI (M) have welcomed the verdict of the Kerala High Court setting aside the government notification de-linking the Kozhikode Corporation and forming three new municipalities.

Prof. Premajam said that the decision to divide the Corporation had been taken to suit the political and communal interests of the Congress and Indian Union Muslim League. “No government had delinked a Corporation to constitute three new municipalities. Usually it is upgrading a municipality to a Corporation or merging an urban area lying close to a city to the Corporation limits. This notification of the government has been a retrograde step,” she said.

The government had delinked erstwhile Cheruvannur-Nallalam, Beypore, and Elathur, which had been merged to the Corporation before the previous local body polls. Perhaps this victory of the CPI-(M) led coalition had made the Congress- IUML-Janata Dal (U) combine to divide the civic body which the Left parties had been ruling for more than three decades. The government had also proposed the formation of the municipalities such as Payyoli, Koduvally, Mukkam, Ramanattukara, Feroke and merging the Thalakulathoor grama panchayat with the proposed Elathur grama panchayat. “We knew that the government’s notification was constitutionally invalid. All the 75 wards have been equally given importance when it came to development initiatives,” Prof. Premajam said.

P. Mohanan, CPI (M) district secretary told The Hindu that verdict had been tight slap on the arrogance of the Congress-led United Democratic Front. “The government had been implementing the communal agenda of the Muslim League through the delimitation process. So you find that wards and grama panchayats have been geographically redrawn on the basis of the population of Hindus and Muslims. Such a notification done without any scientific basis is challenging the interests of the people,” he said.

The government should take the verdict as a lesson and rescind from its notification. In any case, the party is going ahead with the hartal at Perambra on Thursday, Mr. Mohanan said.