Kerala MPs including Priyanka Gandhi meet Amit Shah, urge him to declare Wayanad landslides national disaster

New Delhi: Kerala MPs cutting across party lines, including newly-elected Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on Wednesday met Home Minister Amit Shah urging him to declare Wayanad landslides as national disaster or level-3 national calamity and release Rs 2,221 crore needed for reconstruction.

The MPs from both Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-led LDF submitted a joint representation complaining that the state has not received a single penny from the Union government though "some states facing calamities have been treated with special care by allocating thousands of crores".

It said Kerala’s plea was “neglected” by the Union government.

Priyanka told reporters after the meeting that the amount needed to rebuild Wayanad was estimated to be Rs 2,221 crore. “The devastation has been immense…A letter has been written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi also,” she said.

The Wayanad MP said there are landslides-affected people in Wayanad who have no support system left and if the Centre cannot step up in such circumstances, it sends a very bad message to the entire country and especially to the victims, she said

"Families, houses, businesses, schools, everything has been washed away. In such a situation, if the central government does not do anything then what can we do? So we appealed to him that setting aside politics, people there should be helped from a humanitarian point of view," she said.

"I also told him that the Prime Minister had gone there and met victims and when she met the victims there was an expectation among them that the PM would do something but till now no help has been extended which is saddening," she said.