The AIADMK functionaries targeted Thanjavur DMK candidate T R Baalu’s connection with the environmentally-disastrous distillery unit and the Coal Bed Methane (CBM) project proposed in Cauvery delta districts.
Speaking at the Thanjavur Assembly AIADMK cadre meeting of the party held here on Friday, R Vaithilingam, Minister for Housing and District Secretary of the party, referred to T R Baalu’s effort to start the environmentally-polluting distillery unit at Vadacherry village under the King Chemicals and distilleries company owned by his sons. He also referred to the charges levelled by various farmers association against T R Baalu regarding his alleged role in facilitating the proposed CBM project, which would deplete the ground water sources of Cauvery delta. Vaithilingam appealed to party cadre to take up the campaign among the people about these issues during the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.
K Thangamuthu, AIADMK farmers’ wing state secretary, said Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had asserted the rights of Tamil Nadu over Cauvery water through the legal process. He charged the erstwhile DMK government for giving licence to the proposed CBM extraction project in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur districts and recalled the police lathi-charge against protesting farmers.