BJP, Congress workers clash in Salem, Ponnar intervenes

Congress workers, who found BJP party flags fluttering around Kamaraj statue at Second Agraharam Street in Salem Town, had sought to remove them in the morning. However the BJP workers refused to do so, but assured to remove after their party’s Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan garlands the statue.

A quarrel broke out between the cadres of two parties and it later snowballed into a fisticuff, when some Congress workers attempted to remove the flags.

The cadres of the both the national parties clashed using flag poles and hurled stones at each other. Even as policemen deployed on duty attempted to convince the party workers, they refused to oblige and continued with their push and shove for a short while.

By then, Union Minister Radhakrishnan arrived and pacified his party men and advised them to remove the party flags. The clash left a few cadres of both the BJP and the Congress with injuries.

Speaking to reporters, after garlanding Kamaraj’s statue, Radhakrishnan said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is delivering a corruption free government by following the footsteps of late Kamaraj.

“Corruption, which has been an incurable disease in Tamil Nadu over the last 50 years, should be driven out.

A corruption free government should be formed in TN,” he said. 

Reiterating that extremist forces are instigating people against development projects including the SalemChennai Expressway Project, the Union Minister said that people should understand they are being used as a shield by extremist elements.

Further he also said that the Centre and CBSC will take into consideration the observations of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on these issues.