Chennai: “Who says this? 007 James Bond?” retorted senior minister D. Jayakumar when reporters sought his response to DMK working president M.K. Stalin tweeting from London linking the I.T. raids to a 'benami' of Chief Minister K. Palaniswami.
“After failing in all his smear campaigns against us in the agitations here, he has gone to London to put out his tweets. Stalin must look into the mirror to see how it was during the DMK rule that the tender rules were flouted and contracts awarded for hefty kickbacks”, Jayakumar said.
Elaborating, the minister said, “On just one date, 17.5.2010, four tenders were awarded to Ramalingam & Co of Erode. DMK president Karunanidhi was the Chief Minister then and had the PWD and Water Resources departments under him. While such irregularities were done at that time, the present government is strictly following the Tender Transparency Act”.
Insisting that Stalin was making his charges “only out of political vendetta”, Jayakumar listed out the various contracts awarded during the DMK rule violating rules for hefty kickbacks. “As many as 185 contracts were given to just one person by the DMK government during 2006-2011. No one else was allowed to participate in the bidding”, he said.
Asked to comment on Stalin's charge that Seyyadurai now being raided is CM's benami, Jayakumar shot back: “SPK and Ramalingam have been contractors for 25 years, whichever party came to power”.
The minister also argued that the IT raids had nothing to do with any corruption charges and were only aimed at verifying tax evasion by the concerned persons and companies.
