Chennai: The Madras High Court ruling on the Salem-Chennai green corridor project quashing the acquisition of land for the project has dealt a ‘death blow’ to the Edappadi Palaniswami government, DMK president M. K. Stalin has said.
AIADMK’s ally and PMK leader Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, one of the petitioners who challenged the Rs 10,000 crore project, too, hailed the court order and said the outcome was a “victory” to his party and farmers.
Stalin said the government should not go on an appeal against the court ruling and demanded the Chief Minister to apologise to farmers for acquiring their land. “The court has dealt a death blow to the Palaniswami government which does not respect people’s sentiments,” Stalin alleged in a statement here.
He claimed the government paid no heed to the views of the farmers who did not want to part with their land and was keen on implementing the project with the help of the police. Taking a swipe at Anbumani Ramadoss, Stalin said “he has stopped talking” about the project after his party entered into an electoral alliance with the AIADMK.” Stalin sought to know if PMK would quit the alliance if the Chief Minister failed to give such an assurance that his government would not appeal against the high court order.
Earlier in the day, a bench comprising Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Bhavani Subbarayan quashed the land acquisition process for the project, and held that it required a mega realignment as the proposed route would have an adverse effect on the environment.
CPI (M) state secretary K. Balakrishnan too hailed the verdict. He said farmers were humiliated and forced to give their lands for the project.
