Congress Has No Money Left to Build Houses for Wayanad Landslide Survivors, Admits KPCC President Sunny Joseph

Thiruvananthapuram: KPCC president Sunny Joseph has admitted that the Congress party does not have sufficient funds to construct houses for the survivors of the Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide disaster in Wayanad, and that additional money will need to be sourced from party funds for the purpose.

Addressing a press conference, Sunny Joseph disclosed that a total of Rs 5.38 crore (Rs 5,38,21,632) had been collected into the joint account held by the Opposition Leader and the KPCC president for house construction. In addition, Rs 1.05 crore raised by the Youth Congress also reached the Congress leadership. Of this, Rs 9 lakh was spent on developing a mobile application to collect the fund.

The funds were exhausted after land was purchased in two phases. An additional Rs 97 lakh had to be drawn from the KPCC fund to complete the land acquisition. A further Rs 73 lakh is still required to complete the registration of the land, which Sunny Joseph said would be sourced from the KPCC and AICC funds.

The disclosure has deepened the contradictions within the Congress leadership over the relief fund. AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal had earlier stated that the collected funds were used to purchase land in three plots, and that when the amount raised fell short, additional funds were drawn from the KPCC account. However, Venugopal declined to specify the exact amount collected or the total expenditure on land acquisition.

With the land purchase itself having drained all available funds, the party has offered no clear answer on where the money for actual house construction will come from — leaving the core promise to Wayanad's landslide survivors without a credible plan.