NE NEWS SERVICE
SALEM, DEC 4
Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday attacked the DMK and its leader MK Stalin, terming him a ‘statement hero’, over repeated allegations of corruption against the ruling dispensation, seeking to remind it of the ‘very big’ 2G spectrum allocation scam.
DMK MPs Kanimozhi and A Raja, also former Telecom Minister, were earlier accused in the scam but acquitted by a special court. The CBI has since appealed against the lower court verdict in the Delhi High Court.
Raja flayed Palaniswami, asking him to show any DMK leader who has been convicted for graft and said he was ready for a public debate on the issue with the chief minister.
Speaking to reporters here, Palaniswami also defended the Centre’s contentious recent farm laws, against which farmers have been staging a massive protest near Delhi.
Refuting Stalin’s allegations of corruption and scam, especially in government tenders, Palaniswami said that due processes were being followed and ruled out any irregularities.
முதல்வர் பழனிச்சாமிக்கு சவால் @CMOTamilNadu pic.twitter.com/FW2sYTsPWf
— A RAJA (@dmk_raja) December 4, 2020
‘The 2G spectrum (allocation) scam was a very big scam. The amount of Rs 1.76 lakh crore (the alleged loss) is equivalent to Tamil Nadu’s budget. It happened when they were in power at the Centre with the Congress,’ he said.
‘(The then) Congress government took action and he (Raja) was put in jail,’ Palaniswami said and questioned how the opposition party could now make allegations against the AIADMK government.
He also questioned the ‘first come first serve basis’ of spectrum allocation then, an aspect that was scrutinised.
‘Such a big scam happened and they are targeting the AIADMK government to conceal this,’ he said.
Training his guns against Stalin, he lampooned him for ‘issuing statements daily sitting inside a room’ and dubbed him as a ‘Statement Hero.’ ‘He is desperate that he could not capture power and this (allegations by Stalin) is a result of that,’ the AIADMK Co-Coordinator said.
He said the erstwhile DMK government ‘is the only one in the country to be dismissed for corruption’ and therefore Stalin had no right to talk about graft.
Palaniswami also slammed the DMK for being a ‘dynastic’ party and said Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also attacked it on the subject recently in Chennai, saying there would be no place for such politics in Tamil Nadu.
On the protest by farmers against Centre’s new farm laws, Palaniswami reiterated it did not affect the ryots and said it protected them from price fluctuation, among others.
Farmers could now sell their produce anywhere in the country, he added.
The chief minister quipped the BJP workers should be highlighting all these aspects and asked them to take the facts to people.
He also said he has not received any negative feedback from farmer unions in Tamil Nadu about the legislations.
Responding to Palaniswami’s tirade against his party and himself, Raja said no DMK leader has been convicted of corruption, since the days of the late Indira Gandhi or MG Ramachandran, even in ‘politically influenced’ cases.
‘The statement made by the chief minister does not suit his office and is not in good taste,’ he told reporters in Chennai.
Pointing out that he was picked by jailed former AIADMK leader VK Sasikala as CM prior to her incarceration in 2017, Raja alleged Palaniswami came to the post by ‘accident.’ ‘I am prepared for a debate tomorrow or day after with him on 2G (case) if he can show if any DMK leader has been convicted for graft allegations including in 2G,’ Raja said.
In an apparent reference to the conviction of former chief minister late J Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case, he said ‘the AIADMK’s corruption had been proved.’ With the death of Jayalalithaa in 2016, who was the first accused in the case, the appeal by Karnataka against her acquittal by the Karnataka High Court stood abated in the Supreme Court, which had convicted Sasikala and two of her relatives in the case
