Thiruvananthapuram: Describing as baseless Sonia Gandhi's charge that Kerala government had failed to implement centrally funded schemes, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan today said levelling such charges without knowing the facts was against democratic norms.

Reacting sharply to Gandhi's remarks made at a state Congress meet in Kochi yesterday, he told reporters here that treating as favour or concessions the allocation of funds by the Centre to states for development projects exposed their "feudal mentality."

Achuthanandan said the charges levelled against the government were baseless. It was during the LDF Government s regime, that the work on land acquisition for Vallarpadam Transshipment Container Terminal and LNG Terminal moved forward.

The Centre itself had recognised the performance of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in Kerala, he said.

The Chief Minister said he along with Opposition leader Oommen Chandy would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi tomorrow to take up the issue of Kochi Metro project and the issue of setting up a Bench of the Kerala High Court in the state capital here.

To a question on job reservation issue in the state, Achuthanandan said the LDF government wanted to maintain 50 per cent quota for merit and 50 per cent for reservation. The state would give its opinion to the Supreme Court in a connected case, he added.

He said the state cabinet today ratified the Justice Rajendra Babu Commission recommendation to raise the income limit to identify creamy layer in Other Backward Classes from Rs 2.50 lakh to Rs 4.50 lakh.

Source : PTI