Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran on Monday questioned whether there was a political motive behind the Meteorological Department’s decision to issue a red alert for Tamil Nadu on October 7.
“Now, it seems even the Meteorological Department is not trustworthy. It gave a red alert for Tamil Nadu. But if you have noticed, there was no rain at all. This raises the question whether the department is also playing politics,” Mr. Dhinakaran told mediapersons at the Chennai airport. He was responding to a query regarding the Election Commission’s decision not to announce the dates for holding the Tiruvarur and Tirupparankundram bypolls.
Mr. Dhinakaran claimed that even the DMK was not keen on facing the byelections. “The main opposition party in the State went and filed a case in the court. R.S. Bharathi (DMK organising secretary) even gave an interview a couple of months ago to a television news channel, stating that the byelections (to Tirupparankundram) won’t take place,” he said. The AMMK leader also slammed the State government’s decision to send a letter to the Election Commission through the Chief Secretary, seeking to delay the bypolls on account of the monsoon rain. “Everything is a drama,” he said.
On Governor Banwarilal Purohit’s allegation of corruption in the process of appointing Vice-Chancellors to State universities, Mr. Dhinakaran claimed that the previous Governor, Vidyasagar Rao, had asked him (Dhinakaran) to intervene in the matter.
“When [Edappadi] Palaniswami formed the government, the then Governor Vidyasagar [Rao] spoke to me in my capacity as the deputy general secretary of the AIADMK and told me that complaints had been received regarding the Higher Education Department. He asked me to personally intervene in the matter and tell the Ministers that the Vice-Chancellor search committee and all [other] committees should be convened properly,” Mr. Dhinakaran claimed. He also claimed that it was he who had asked for IAS officer Sunil Paliwal to be appointed as Higher Education Secretary. “That is when Thangamani (Electricity Minister) and Velumani (Local Administration Minister) wanted me out of the party. Till then, EPS [Mr. Palaniswami] was working properly. Only after, he became like this,” he alleged.
Questioning the Governor’s claim of corruption in V-C appointments, he said, “Sastra University (a deemed university in Thanjavur) has encroached government land. But the Governor, while raising the corruption issue, goes to attend a function at that college…what can be said about that?”
Meanwhile, BJP leader and Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan on Monday said that the BJP had nothing to do with the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to request the Election Commission to defer the byelections.
‘OPS was an agent of BJP’
Addressing mediapersons in Karur, Mr. Dhinakaran claimed that O. Panneerselvam was asked to step down as Chief Minister since he was acting as an agent of the BJP government at the Centre.
Speaking at the end of a day-long fast observed by disqualified MLA of Aravakurichi constituency T. Senthil Balaji at Velayuthampalayam in protest against the perceived failure of the State government to implement welfare and development work there, Mr. Dhinakaran said that instead of providing good governance, Mr. Panneerselvam was “dancing to the tune of someone”. He was acting as an agent of New Delhi [the Centre], he alleged, and claimed this was the reason why Mr. Panneerselvam was removed from the post of CM.