AIADMK puts up brave front on founding day, blasts DMK on corruption

Addressing reporters on the sidelines of AIADMK founding day celebrations in Villupuram, the CM equipped with National Highways and State Highways tender quotations dating back to the DMK regime, furnished the rates cleared by former Union Minister for road and surface transport T R Baalu for highway projects in Tamil Nadu between 2006 and 2009 and compared them with the present rates.

Quoting the phase two of the Chennai bypass road project (2005-2010), Palaniswami said the amount spent per kilometre was Rs 12.42 crore. Similarly for the Paadalur-Tiruchy highway, Rs 8.33 crore was spent per kilometre in 2006. “But now, the DMK organising secretary R S Bharathi, who has filed a petition in the court, submits that it costs only Rs 2.60 crore per kilometre of a highway,” he said.

“The rates have increased by 50 per cent due to inflation. But the AIADMK government through the TNRDC has fixed just Rs 10.16 crore per kilometre to lay the four-lane projects. The public should now understand that it was during the DMK regime the actual scam took place,” the CM said.

Palaniswami also referred the State tender act, 1968, which states the guidelines for issuing contracts. “The contractors who had got the road projects in TN under these guidelines are not my blood relatives. Further, the company Ramalingam and Co, alleged to be my relatives is already an established company in TN for the past 35 years. The company bagged ten projects even during the DMK regime. Even the DMK back then awarded a single tender covering five road projects, and this is again a vested allegation against me,” EPS said.

He also questioned DMK president M K Stalin for not facing the judicial inquiry commission formed by the AIADMK government to probe into the alleged scam in constructing the new secretariat complex. “If there is no scam in the new secretariat construction face judicial enquiries like me, why file stay orders in the court against the legal process,” EPS posed to Stalin.

 Earlier, while addressing AIADMK cadre, he said, “The Madras High Court has only asked the CBI to probe into the allegations and the court has not convicted me. We are not worried over the corruption charges alleged by the DMK as there is no element of truth in those charges.” 

Earlier in the day, he and party coordinator O Panneerselvam hoisted the AIADMK flag and garlanded statues of its founder M G Ramachandran and his successor J Jayalalithaa at the party headquarters in Chennai.