Twenty nine Indians rescued from strife torn Libya were brought back to India on Thursday morning. But a war of words has now broken out between the Kerala state government and central government over who brought the Indians back.

The controversy started with the nurses who landed from Libya telling reporters at the Kochi airport that no government had helped them.

Reacting to this at a press meet in Kochi today, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said, “You ask their families how we were involved. I have been in constant touch with them. Their demand was just flight tickets. We could not arrange the tickets due to some technical reasons, so they arranged it and asked the government to pay. At thae earliest we will pay complete flight ticket charges.”

Chandy further said that though the families met central ministers, they had received no help.

Following this, Minister of External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj put forth questions to Chandy on Twitter.

Her first tweet said- “Mr.Chandy - We evacuated thousands of Indians from Kerala from Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Who paid for them?”

Tweet 2- “You said 'Kerala paid for 29 Indians evacuated from Libya.'

Tweet 3- “You started this debate - as to who paid ? Not me. We always did this because this is our pious duty towards our citizens.

The News Minute asked NORKA Roots that deals with Nonresident Keralites. NORKA roots general manager Sivaprasad told The News Minute, “Indian embassy has done whatever they could to help them. It is not necessary that all help should be seen explicitly.”  

On Wednesday, addressing a rally in Kerala, PM Modi had said,”I have some good news for you. Six families from Kerala and three Tamil Nadu residents, who were stranded in Libya, will return home safely tomorrow or day after. In total 29 persons have been rescued.”