CHENNAI: Just as the agitation of the Tamil Nadu farmers in New Delhi entered the 30th day, Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan, former TNCC president E V K S Elangovan and Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha and AIADMK (Amma) leader M Thambidurai called on them. While Radhakrishnan and Thambidurai appealed to the farmers to end their agitation, Elangovan urged the Centre to heed to their demands immediately.
At one point, Radhakrishnan accused the farmers of making him wait for hours together at his office, while the latter claimed that they had no information that the minister was waiting for them.
The union minister said when the farmers met him on Tuesday, he had requested them to give their demands in the form of a representation so that he could take up the issue with the respective ministers. “But they did not. I was waiting for more than two-and-a-half-hours for the farmers today. But they did not turn up. In the evening, they sent a representation through a journalist. I think nowhere in the country, a minister is insulted in such a manner,” he added. He said the Centre had not written off the loans of farmers of other States despite demands from them. “There is no partiality shown to TN farmers on this count. Their demand that the severity being adopted by officials in attaching the properties for the loans should be given up can be considered by the government,” the minister said, appealing to the farmers to end their agitation.
However, Ayyakannu, who is leading the agitation, said there was no intimation from the office of the minister about Radhakrishnan waiting for farmers.