TIRUVANNAMALAI: Tension gripped 10 villages, near Melma, in Tiruvannamalai district on Tuesday as police barricaded the hamlets to foil the proposed Chennai visit of farmers to meet Chief Minister MK Stalin and express their opposition to the Cheyyar SIPCOT expansion plan.
Though the police assured them an audience with the Chief Minister, some of the residents from the group numbering around 300 of the 10 villages reached the Melma Road and began a relay fast demanding permission to meet MK Stalin.
“We planned to travel by public transport to Chennai and meet Assembly Speaker Appavu to highlight how PWD Minister EV Velu, a week ago, provided wrong information to the Assembly claiming that only two of the seven, who were detained under the Goondas Act, were farmers,” said A Chandran, one of the participants of the relay fast.
“However, police learnt of our plans and on Tuesday barricaded all ten villages detaining all of us inside our areas. Then they came to Melma Road junction, our agitation venue, and informed us that they would obtain permission for five of us to meet CM Stalin,” he added.
The protesters said that repeated emails to Industry Minister TRB Raja and Agriculture Minister MRK Paneerselvam asked them to come for a spot study in our area to check for themselves the veracity of our claims. As the emails failed to elicit any reply we planned the Chennai trip.
“Initially we wanted to meet Speaker Appavu to request him to expunge Velu’s false claims. But after Ministers Raja and Paneerselvam failed to answer, we decided to continue the relay fast till we are granted an audience with the CM,” Chandran added.
Sources also revealed that one of the 11 participants of the fast was aged over 80 while another was above 60 and an acute diabetic who is under treatment.