Senior AIADMK leader and Mettur MLA S. Semmalai on Sunday alleged that the DMK was attacking Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on the basis of a video clip linking him to the Kodanad Estate break-in case only to bring him and his government into disrepute.
The AIADMK government was prepared to face a CBI inquiry into the issue, he said.
Addressing the media at the party office in Omalur, Mr. Semmalai said that the accused in the Kodanad case had planned the burglary when former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was undergoing treatment in hospital. He claimed that the former CM’s driver, Kanagaraj, thought she would die, and hence, planned the burglary with a gang from Kerala and executed it after her death.
Mr. Semmalai claimed that the accused had gone to the estate not in search of any documents, but for valuables. “That being so, how can they link the Chief Minister to the issue?” he questioned.
This was a conspiracy against the Chief Minister planned for political gain, he said, and questioned the link between the magazine Tehelka’s former managing editor Samuel Mathew [who made the allegations] and the accused.
Strongly condemning the DMK for spreading “false information”, he said it was doing this with an eye on the Lok Sabha polls.
The people will not believe false campaigns against the Chief Minister, the AIADMK leader said.
Earlier, the Chief Minister arrived in Salem and visited the party office at Omalur to hold discussions with Ministers and MLAs.