Chennai: The ruling AIADMK has readied massive and colourful reception to welcome Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami returning after a 'successful' trip covering the UK, USA and Dubai, for wooing foreign investors into Tamil Nadu. The CM would have landed in the early hours of Tuesday.
While the opposition leaders have been crying hoarse that the CM and 10 other ministers have taken off to different destinations across the globe almost at the same period — some including the CM in batches and seniors like the education minister K A Sengottaiyan solo to Finland — only for leisure, the Government has been maintaining a steady and continuous information flow through its agencies for the media, detailing the outcome of their various engagements.
CM Palaniswami, in particular, had hectic schedules throughout his trip, meeting prominent industrialists in various cities visited besides Diaspora leaders, and either getting briefed about the technologies that could be copied in Tamil Nadu or brief the audience of investors of their opportunities waiting in Tamil Nadu.
Even in the last leg of his travel on Monday, CM met trade and industry captains in Dubai and signed six MoU's worth Rs 3,750 crore at an investors' roundtable -thus taking his overall score to over Rs 8,750 crore during this trip.
Politically, the Chief Minister appears to have gained significantly in terms of his makeover from the image of a Salem farmer to the suave suited-booted negotiator of plum foreign investments with foreigners, besides the guided tours in hi-tech factories there. In short, Edappadi has come back as Mr CM, with a bagful of green bucks. And politically, he is being hailed as the 'true heir' of Amma.
