His appeal came in the wake of state Highways Minister EV Velu saying in the Assembly that a decision on the project would be made only after ascertaining the views of the people. “Eight lane Chennai Salem Expressway has become a six-lane project. It is a Central project and it mandatorily requires an environmental clearance and forest clearance for its implementation. As far as our Chief Minister is concerned, our party stand remains unchanged. Our stand is that the decision on the project should be taken after ascertaining views of the public,” he said.

Shanmugham said that Minister’s recent statement seems to be deviating from its poll assurance of scrapping the project altogether. “We are clear in our demand of scrapping the expressway project as there are already three alternative routes for connecting Salem with Chennai available, ” he said.