CHENNAI: Finance Minister O Panneerselvam on Monday strongly condemned remarks made by Union ministers Piyush Goel and Pon Radhakrishnan on the unavailability of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, terming it as baseless and without an iota of truth, citing around 10 occasions the Chief Minister had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers.
“Union ministers have started unleashing false allegations since the AIADMK cannot be beaten at the hustings. The best way to face Assembly elections is to face it on the basis of principles and the welfare schemes to be implemented for the people. They should stop such malicious campaigns,” Panneerselvam said in a statement here.
The counter-attack came on a day when Muralidar Rao, BJP national general secretary and in charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu, repeated the charges, saying: “Tamil Nadu politics is suffering heavily due to the leader who is inaccessible.” Asked to explain the reason for the late attack on the AIADMK government, Rao said his party had been criticising the government on all key issues since the past two years.
However, rubbishing all allegations, Panneerselvam took the fight to the BJP’s camp, saying the Prime Minister had himself not allotted time recently for 48 MPs from Tamil Nadu who wanted issues relating to fishermen and GAIL project addressed by him.
Pointing out that the Chief Minister had been taking up numerous issues with the Central government while opposing issues which went against the interests of Tamil Nadu, Panneerselvam recalled that within a few days after Narendra Modi assumed charge as the PM, she met him at Delhi on June 3, 2014 and submitted a memorandum detailing the requirements of TN. On the same day, she also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Besides, ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman and Pon Radhakrishnan met the Chief Minister.
Further, the Prime Minister met the Chief Minister at her residence on August 7, 2015. She met the Prime Minister when he visited Chennai during the floods and briefed him about the devastation. The statement also released a list of names of Union ministers who met the Chief Minister at the Secretariat: Ravi Shankar Prasad (August 28, 2014), M Venkaiah Naidu (September 5, 2014 and December 13, 2015), Ashok Gajapathi Raju (December 7, 2015) and Arun Jaitley (December 20, 2015).
BJP to Reach Out to Voters Via Web
Coimbatore: BJP State vice president Vanithi Srinivasan, who will be contesting in Coimbatore South constituency, said the party will launch a web portal to receive complaint and expectation from the public in the constituency. “We will be launching the web portal by Tuesday, in which the people belonging to Coimbatore south constituency can register their complaints and their expectation towards the candidate,” she said.
5K Cadre Switch Over to DMK
Chennai: Functionaries and cadre from other political parties, including DMDK, AIADMK, MDMK, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and VCK joined the DMK at a function held at the party’s headquarter, Anna Arivalayam, here on Monday. A statement from the party claimed that over 5,000 functionaries and cadre belonging to other political parties in Tiruvallur south joined the DMK in the presence of DMK treasurer M K Stalin.
MMK Hopes for 5 seats from AIADMK
Thanjavur: Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam has sought five seats in the AIADMK front. This was disclosed by G M Sridhar Vandayar, president of the party in Thanjavur on Monday. Addressing media after submitting a petition to the Superintendent of Police regarding recent attack on his party cadre near Kumbakonam, Vandaiyar said the governing council of the party had decided to support the AIADMK front in the assembly elections.