Minister's denial on drug charges raises more questions, says Nainar Nagenthran

CHENNAI: BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran on Saturday questioned the explanation given by Human Resources Management Minister D Sarathkumar over allegations that he had consumed a synthetic drug in public and urged Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay to order an inquiry into the matter.

In a statement, Nainar Nagenthran said the minister's clarification had failed to answer the questions raised in the public domain. Sarathkumar had earlier said he had crushed a tablet prescribed for his one-and-a-half-year-old child and denied allegations that he had consumed any prohibited substance.

Nainar questioned why a tablet meant for a child was crushed in a manner that had led to suspicion and asked the Chief Minister to conduct a detailed inquiry and take appropriate action if required. He also called for steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In a separate statement, the BJP leader raised concerns over the recruitment of assistant professors in government arts and science colleges and sought a review of the recruitment process.

He referred to reports of discrepancies in candidate evaluations and claimed that some candidates who scored highly in the written examination had received zero or very low marks in the essay section. He also alleged that the service experience marks of certain candidates had changed after certificate verification.

Nainar said such allegations had raised questions about the recruitment process and called on the government to re-examine the results before proceeding with appointments.

He also urged the government to increase the number of assistant professor posts from the notified 2,708 to 4,000 by including 1,292 vacant posts that are yet to be notified.