Kamal effect: Government portal deletes Ministers’ contact details

The Assembly website (www.assembly.tn.gov.in) still has the details, including the mobile phone numbers of all legislators. The deletion is believed to be the outcome of actor Kamal Haasan tweeting the URL to the page on Tamil Nadu government’s website (www.tn.gov.in) that has the list of ministers, besides blaming the government as being totally corrupt and appealing to citizens to mount digital feedback on corruptions they had come across. 

On Friday, School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan said he wasn’t aware of the contact information deletion from the government portal. “It has not come to my knowledge. You’ve just brought it up. I will take this up with the Chief Minister,” Sengottaiyan told the reporters. Both the actor and cabinet have been on a war of words ever since the matinée star said that the state machinery is embroiled in corruption, and the ministers demanding the actor to be more specific on the matter, besides threatening to book him. 

An official from National Informatics Centre (NIC) which hosts and maintains the state portal, downplayed the incident by claiming that they uploaded what they had provided with. Informed sources suggest the information was available until Kamal upped his attack on the state.