Chennai: Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin and PMK founder S. Ramadoss on Friday demanded the resignation of deputy chief minister O. Panneerselvam and several of his cabinet colleagues after their name allegedly figured in a diary purportedly recovered by I-T officials from sand baron Shekhar Reddy.
Quoting media reports, Stalin said the diary allegedly mentions payments of kickbacks by Shekhar Reddy to Panneerselvam, ministers P. Thangamani, C .Vijayabhaskar, M.C. Sampath, R.B. Uthayakumar, Dindigul C. Srinivasan, M.R. Vijayabhaskar and K C Karupannan.
“Media reports have come that ministers were on the payroll of Shekhar Reddy. A detailed inquiry should be instituted into the issue. And moreover all ministers who have been related to Shekhar Reddy should quit their posts immediately. Governor Banwarilal Purohit should intervene in this issue,” Stalin told reporters.
He also demanded that a CBI inquiry be instituted to get to the bottom of the allegations. The diary, pages of which were published in a weekly magazine and telecast on a popular English news channel, reportedly has details of payouts given to ministers and other political functionaries. However, the mining baron said he does not have the habit of writing a diary. “I never wrote diary in my life and this is not my handwriting,” Reddy said.
In a statement, Ramadoss demanded that the Edappadi K Palaniswami cabinet resign immediately to pave the wave for an “impartial” probe into the allegations made against top brass of the government. “The State Government should recommend a CBI probe into the issue. To facilitate the CBI inquiry, the chief minister and ministers should quit en masse immediately,”he said in the statement.
