DMK to picket Raj Bhavan on Jan 24

DMK president MK Stalin, who had petitioned Governor Banwarilal Purohit demanding immediate sacking of Chief Minister K Palaniswami earlier, on Tuesday announced the demonstration urging the Governor to invoke Constitutional provisions against the CM and order a transparent probe by a special investigation team headed by an IG level officer into the issue.

In a statement announcing the offensive against the Chief Minister, Stalin took a veiled dig at the Governor for inaction on his petition. 

In another statement, Stalin urged the state to mount pressure on the BJP-led Centre to revoke the approval given by the Centre to the detailed project report of Karnataka government for the Mekadatu Dam project without the consent of Tamil Nadu.

Advising the State to advance the same argument in the Supreme Court and obtain a stay for constructing the dam, Stalin who is also the Leader of Opposition urged Chief Minister Palaniswami to stop supporting the Centre from behind the scene in destroying the livelihood of Tamil Nadu farmers by promising legal remedy on the issue.

He wondered why the CM had not asked the Centre as to how it had accepted the DPR without eliciting the views of Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the DMK has petitioned the state Chief Secretary and Health Secretary to accommodate 108 medical students of a closed private medical college near Kancheepuram in the 22 government medical colleges as per the order of the Madras High Court.

Referring to a representation made by the students and their parents to Stalin earlier, DMK organising secretary RS Bharati, in his memorandum sent to the Chief Secretary, detailed the HC order and said that as a first step of compliance of the order, the state government should have sent a proposal to the Board of Governors in supersession of Medical Council of India to accommodate the affected students of Ponnaiyah Ramajayam Institute of Medical Sciences in the 22 government medical colleges in the state with ten days from the date of receipt of the copy of the order.

 “As per the HC order, the proposal has to be sent by the state government within 10 days. But the proposal is not sent by the state government so far and further steps are not taken, as informed by the students,” Bharati said.