Thiruvananthapuram: Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan on Monday slammed the Kerala government’s claim that the state has eliminated extreme poverty, calling it a “PR stunt built on manipulated data.”

Satheesan’s remarks came two days after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced in a special Assembly session and later at a grand public event in Thiruvananthapuram that the state is now free of extreme poverty.

He accused the CPI(M) of launching cyberattacks on economists and social scientists who exposed the government’s manipulated statistics.

“Even as the government celebrated the so-called declaration, a hunger-related death was reported in Thiruvananthapuram that very day. The claim that there are no ultra-poor in Kerala is a lie. The government has not even spent the budgeta

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