Chennai: Even as opinion is divided in the ruling AIADMK over alliance with the BJP, dairy development minister K.T. Rajendra Balaji has given a clean chit to the Modi government, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi is providing clean administration.
Though he remarked that Modi was providing a corruption-free governance, the minister claimed that no party could form the government at the Centre without the AIADMK’s help.
Interestingly, while party MP and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai recently remarked that the AIADMK would not carry the BJP on its shoulders and allow it to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, party senior and fisheries minister D. Jayakumar said a decision on poll pact would be taken by the party based on mutual “consent” and “consensus” among all in the party.
On Monday Thambidurai remarked that his party has not made any decision on alliance formation, thus far. “A decision on alliance would be taken by the party’s executive committee,” he claimed.
Speaking to reporters in Sattur in the southern district of Virudhunagar in the state on Monday after distributing country chicks to poultry farmers under the State government’s scheme, Balaji flayed DMK president M.K. Stalin for accusing Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam of performing yagam in his office at the Secretariat here.
“Panneerselvam had only prayed to god in his chamber. Is it wrong to pray to god?” Balaji asked and said the DMK was needlessly spreading canard about something that never happened.
On the Kodanad estate controversy involving the Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami he maintained that Palaniswami’s name was needlessly being dragged. “The CM is innocent. He is prepared to face any test because he has nothing to hide and nothing to fear,” he said.
