CHENNAI: The State has released Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict AG Perarivalan on ordinary leave only with an intention to divert the attention of the people from the ongoing internal turmoil, charged the State Congress unit, cautioning that this would set a wrong precedent.
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president S Thirunavukkarasar alleged that the TN government decided to release him on ordinary leave only to divert the attention of the people from the raging infighting in the AIADMK and the ineffective administration of the government.
“The ruling party has released him to cover up its inefficiency and divert the attention of the people.” Citing the rulings of the SC over the plea for releasing all convicts serving life imprisonment after death sentence was commuted, Thirunavukkarasar said the State should not have released Perarivalan as the matter was still pending before the court.
He noted that the scar inflicted on the people following the brutal assassination of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had not healed even now. “Releasing convicts on ordinary leave will set a wrong precedent,” he said.
Referring to the issue over the Speaker slapping notices to 19 dissenting MLAs of AIADMK, Thirunavukkarasar, who had served as Deputy Speaker felt that whip would be applicable only to the proceedings within the House and not outside.
Action could not be initiated against DMK members for bringing banned tobacco products to show that such products were allowed to be sold after receiving bribe, he said, recalling how K A Mathialagan, one of the founding leaders of the DMK, had brought idlis to register protest against price rice in the past. Saying that the people wanted the Edappadi Palaniswami-led government to go, Thirunavukkarasar informed that his party would finalise its strategy to be adopted in the Assembly if floor test was ordered.