CHENNAI: A sudden rain in Karur on Friday, caused a storm in the Twittersphere on Sunday with BJP State president K Annamalai and power minister V Senthil Balaji locking horns. The rain led to the inundation of parts of the venue at which the Karur book fair is being held and delayed its opening by a few hours on Saturday.
Annamalai, on Twitter, alleged that contractors linked to the ruling DMK had failed to follow the guidelines of the PWD in setting up stalls, causing a loss of Rs 1.5 crore to the exchequer and damage to thousands of books. He urged the State government to compensate the booksellers.
In response, Senthil Balaji said the damage due to rain had been dealt with quickly and cultural events had been conducted as part of the festival at the venue for the past two days. Sharing photographs, he claimed over 2,000 people had attended I Leoni’s programme on Saturday evening and said: “Let the irresponsible keep lying.” Subsequently, DMK and BJP cadres started aggressively trolling one another.
Meanwhile, addressing reporters on Sunday, Karur Collector Dr T Prabhushankar said the fair’s opening was delayed only by a few hours on Saturday morning. According to him, a few books in three out of 115 stalls were damaged and steps are being taken to provide compensation to the vendors.
The fair, being held at Thirumanilaiyur between August 19 and 29, was organised by the district administration along with the South Indian Booksellers and Publishers Association and Library and Reader’s Circle.