TENKASI: Minister CTR Nirmal Kumar on Tuesday played down the row over projecting Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay as the prime ministerial candidate, stating the next Lok Sabha election is due only after a few years.
Asked about the ongoing PM candidate controversy, Nirmal Kumar asserted that there is no confusion in the TVK-led alliance on the matter and said that people have always desired a PM from Tamil Nadu.
“Nature will create an opportunity spontaneously. At this same time last year, no one, including the media, believed our leader would become chief minister. But we believed. However, there are three more years for the parliamentary election. We need not talk about that now. There is no confusion in our alliance over this issue,” he stated.
The minister accompanied by his cabinet colleague V K Rajeev visited the Nerkattumseval village in Tenkasi to pay homage to freedom fighter Poolithevan at his memorial on his 311th birth anniversary.
On the action taken against the smuggling of minerals and illegal mining, he said during the previous government’s tenure, only 10% of the mined mineral was shown in the accounts. “One or two out of 100 quarries in a district followed the mining norms.
At least 98% of the quarries were operating against the law. We are streamlining it across the state. Under the previous regime, each minister functioned as a local king in their respective districts and collected bribes for each tonne of mineral. There is no such practice now,” he added.
“Our chief minister will not allow smuggled minerals to be transported to other states,” he added.