The PM SHRI school scheme has emerged as the latest flashpoint between the ruling UDF government and the opposition LDF, with both sides accusing each other of surrendering Kerala's educational autonomy during the first session of the 16th Kerala Legislative Assembly proceedings.
The issue erupted in the Assembly after CPI member P Prasad raised it through an adjournment motion. What followed was an unusual political exchange: the UDF government defended its position by reading out the actions taken by the previous LDF government, while Leader of the Oppposition Pinarayi Vijayan accused the government of preparing to quietly implement the scheme it once opposed.
Education Minister N Samsudheen told the Assembly that the present government had neither signed any agreement nor taken any step to implement PM SHRI, which aims to upgrade over 14,500 schools into model institutions that fully implement the National Education Policy (NEP). He argued that every major decision related to the scheme had been taken during the previous LDF regime.
The minister cited official records to state that the General Education Secretary had communicated Kerala's willingness to implement the scheme in 2024 itself and that a committee meeting held in July 2024 had approved going ahead with it. He further noted that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on October 16, 2025, during the previous government's tenure.
In a politically loaded attack, Samsudheen said the LDF had "handed over both the knife and the neck" to the Centre by signing an agreement whose withdrawal, according to him, is controlled by the Union government. Had the previous government refused to sign, Kerala would not have been facing the present predicament, he argued.
The minister also sought to puncture the LDF's claim that it had withdrawn from the scheme. According to him, the previous government merely requested that implementation be kept in abeyance until a cabinet sub-committee examined the issue. There was no formal cancellation of the agreement, nor any legal mechanism to nullify the MoU, he said.
Reversing Course
But Pinarayi Vijayan turned the argument around.
The former chief minister claimed the education minister appeared uncomfortable because he was being forced to defend a position that contradicted the UDF's earlier stand. Vijayan recalled that UDF leaders had once declared they would "throw PM SHRI into the Arabian Sea" if they came to power, only to reverse course after assuming office.
His central argument was simple: if the MoU itself automatically bound Kerala to implement PM SHRI, why has the scheme still not been rolled out eight months after it was signed?
Vijayan pointed to communications from both the Union government and proceedings before the Supreme Court to argue that PM SHRI has not yet been implemented in Kerala. He said the LDF government had consciously frozen the agreement within weeks of signing it by informing the Centre that the MoU was being kept in abeyance pending policy review.
According to Vijayan, that decision effectively halted the process. The scheme can now be implemented only if the present UDF government takes a fresh political decision in its favour, he argued.
For now, PM SHRI remains unimplemented in Kerala. But politically, the scheme has already achieved something else: it has become a rare issue on which both fronts are accusing each other of doing exactly the same thing - yielding ground to the Centre.
Speaking to NDTV, BJP MLA BB Gopakumar said Kerala's "weak" fiscal situation was the reason both the UDF and LDF were doing this "drama".
"Both fronts need money from PM SHRI. They both actually agree with PM SHRI but are engaging in rhetoric and farcical protests to dupe the people of Kerala," he said.
