Students opting for higher education have doubled: Edappadi K Palaniswami

Palaniswami started from Salem on Thursday morning and reached Madurai by road. On the way, he was given a rousing reception by the party cadre. He reached Madurai in the afternoon and inaugurated a constituent college of Madurai Kamaraj University at Kappalur.

The college was constructed at a cost of Rs 7.25 crore on a 8.35 acre land. As part of the function, Palaniswami also unveiled a photo of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa inside the college and then distributed welfare measures to college students. Cultural programmes were also conducted for the students.

All eight MLAs from Madurai district participated in the function along with ministers, Sellur Raju, R B Udayakumar, Vellamandi Natarajan and Rajalakshmi. Madurai collector K Veera Raghav Rao welcomed Palaniswami at the function.

After lunch, Palaniswami proceeded to Thoothukudi district by road. The function was organised at a private college at Sawyerpuram in which Palaniswami said that in the last six years of AIADMK rule, 65 colleges were inaugurated and with the aim of providing quality education 4,26,800 laptops were provided for school and college students.

He also added that earlier, before the rule of AIADMK, the percentage of people opting for higher education was just 21 per cent but now it has gone up to 43 per cent.

After the college function, Palaniswami proceeded to a marriage function of his party functionary Arumuga Nainar. At the function, he said that Arumuga Nainar was his long time friend.

When Palaniswami reached Dindigul, a large number of party cadres and functionaries gathered to greet him. The party functionaries led by state forest minister Dindigul Srinivasan garlanded Palaniswamy. However, when the CM arrived, partymen rushed to see him and in the rush, ‘Pazhakadai’ Nagaraj, former councillor of ward 15 of Dindigul Municipal corporation, had suffered a heart attack. Though he was rushed to a private hospital, he died.