Chennai: “What did we bring (while birth), to lose that now?” This was Deputy Chief Minister O. Pannerselvam turning philosophical when a reporter asked whether he had felt bad losing the chief minister’s chair a year ago. Panneerselvam was replaced with Edappadi K. Palaniswami as Chief Minister on February 16, 2017, after the former rebelled against their then leader V. K. Sasikala.
In a brief interaction with reporters here on Thursd-ay on the eve of EPS’ government completing its first year in office, Panneerselvam appealed to the BJP-led Centre not to minimise the funds allotted to Tamil Naduciting the excuse that the state falls under developed category.
At the end of the five-minute interaction, a television reporter sought Panneerselvam’s response on his losing the CM’s post to Edappadi Palaniswami. “What did we bring to lose now?” was the cryptic response from OPS, who ended the interaction at this point without giving a chance to the scribes to further question him on the subject.
After he was replaced with Palaniswami, Panneerselvam headed a faction of the AIADMK for six months before merging it with the camp led by the Chief Minister in August. After the merger at the behest of the BJP, Pannerselvam joined the government as deputy chief minister and settled for the position of coordinator of the ruling AIADMK.
He also said the AIADMK will release list of new office-bearers in the next couple of days. On funds from Centre, Panneerselvam said the Union government should be more generous in allotting more money to Tamil Nadu for taking up several development works.
“The state does not get the money it really deserves because it falls under developed category. This is not fair,” he said, adding that Tamil Nadu has shown the way for several projects like the new medical insurance announced by the Centre.
