Chennai: State fisheries minister D. Jayakumar on Wednesday claimed that no one was invited to unveil the portrait of late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in the Assembly and that DMK working president M. K. Stalin was needlessly making an issue out of the “historic” event.
“Stalin speaks as if the President, Prime Minister and Governor did not turn up for the event, despite being invited. He asks why they have not attended, as if we have invited them and they didn’t attend. We didn’t invite anyone and hence the scope for such a question does not arise,” Mr Jayakumar said and alleged that Mr Stalin was raising the issue with an ulterior motive.
“Like I had said yesterday, we know whom to invite and when. He need not teach us,” the Minister said and added as far as he was concerned, Amma (late CM J. Jayalalithaa) had in 1992 unveiled the portrait of MGR (AIADMK founder and former CM).
“And there is nothing wrong in the Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal unveiling her portrait. We see it as a historic event etched in golden letters in the annals of AIADMK. We thought that it would be a fitting tribute to Amma if her portrait was unveiled before her birthday on Feb. 24,” he added. In May 2017 after calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had told reporters in New Delhi “I presented a memorandum to the Prime Minister.
Apart from this, I invited the Prime Minister to unveil the portrait of former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in the Assembly and participate in the valedictory function of the centenary celebrations of AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran in December.”
On Tuesday, State Ministers P. Thangamani, S.P. Velumani and R.B. Udhayakumar justifying the unveiling of Jayalalithaa’s portrait, told reporters in Coimbatore that if the ruling party had invited BJP leaders for the portrait unveiling function, they would have been criticised as BJP’s slaves. “But we are happy with the Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal had unveiled the portrait,” Mr. Thangamani had said.
