DMK unleashes its IT wing to discredit EPS’s popularity among farmers, says Jayakumar

CHENNAI: Organising Secretary of AIADMK and former Minister D Jayakumar on Tuesday said that the IT wing of the ruling party is going berserk to discredit the efforts of the previous AIADMK regime under Edappadi K Palaniswami to declare the Cauvery delta region as a Protected Special Agricultural Zone (PSAZ).

Unable to withstand the popularity of Palaniswami among farmers, Chief Minister M K Stalin, Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, and senior leaders of the ruling party have unleashed their party's IT wing to carry out a misinformation campaign on social media, Jayakumar told reporters at his residence in Chennai.

“We have ample proof to destroy the DMK’s false campaign,” said Jayakumar, showing a photocopy of the letter from then CM Palaniswami to then Union Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar regarding the TN government’s decision to declare the Cauvery delta region as PSAZ.

The Union Government, in the ongoing Parliament session, responded to a question regarding Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) and noted that there was no such proposal from TN in previous years (during the AIADMK regime).

“They have twisted the facts to suit their false campaign by stating that the AIADMK government did not approach the Centre regarding the Protected Special Agriculture Zone,” Jayakumar said.

“I represented the TN government and handed over the letter on behalf of then-CM (EPS) to the Union minister, who, in turn, informed me that agriculture comes under the state list. Hence, the state government is empowered to declare the region as a protected agricultural zone,” he recalled of his meeting with then-Minister Javadekar.

Following that, the AIADMK regime passed a special bill in the state assembly in February 2020 regarding this matter, which was subsequently published in the gazette.

“It was the DMK government and then Union Minister T R Baalu’s attempt in 2009 to open the delta region for methane projects. But we stopped it by taking proactive measures during our regime,” he said.