Saturday, 03 May 2025
Saturday, 03 May 2025
The commissioning of Vizhinjam port stoked a deeper battle for credit, legacy, and truth, in the southern state of Kerala on Friday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned the international seaport alongside Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress MP from Tiruvananathapuram, Shashi Tharoor.
PM Modi remarked that Tharoor’s presence at the inauguration would give “sleepless nights” to many. “Your presence will give sleepless nights to many,” PM Modi told Vijayan and Tharoor from the stage.
When the translator failed to convey the message, the Prime Minister followed up: “The message has gone across to whom it was meant.”
Calling Vijayan a “pillar” of the Opposition INDIA bloc, Modi’s jibe landed sharply as he stood alongside a top CPI (M) leader and a Congress MP.
The Congress claimed it was Oommen Chandy, the former Congress chief minister, who secured all necessary clearances for Vizhinjam Port during the UPA regime.
Congress MLA Ramesh Chennithala reminded: “Remembering dear Oommen Chandy today. He is the real architect of Vizhinjam Port without whom this port would not have become a reality.”
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “As the PM dedicates Vizhinjam Port to the nation today, my mind goes back to June 13, 2011 when the-then CM of Kerala Oommen Chandy and the Thiruvananthapuram MP Dr Shashi Tharoor invited me to visit the site to set the ball rolling.”
Tharoor, whom Modi praised, had said on Thursday, “Looking forward to [Modi] officially commissioning Vizhinjam port, a project I have been proud to have been involved with since its inception.”
The deep-water port has been developed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), India's largest port developer and part of the Adani Group, under a public-private partnership.
Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani said, “Today, at Vizhinjam, history, destiny and possibility came together as a 30-year-old dream of Kerala became India’s gateway to the world. We are proud to have built India’s first deep-sea automated port. A future global transshipment hub.”
Karan Adani, MD of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd, said, "We have to be an enabler of the growth in the country and we do believe that whatever we are building today, it's not enough. When we built this (port), everybody was questioning whether this would be filled up or not. Today, we are clocking almost 100 thousand moves every month.
As a company, we have Mundra, we have Vizhinjam. So all our Western ports can be a gateway to the IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic) corridor and then the exit of the IMEC Corridor, which is Haifa in Israel, that is also operated by us.”
