‘Centre has not kept its promise to save fishermen’

Mutharasan said that the party will discuss the matter at its state executive committee meeting in Chennai on Monday. “We will discuss with G Ramakrishnan (state secretary of CPM) and Thol Thirumavalavan (VCK founder) and announce a good decision in the evening,” he added.

On the assurance by Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to the fishermen at Thangachimadam to fulfil their demands, following which the fishermen had announced to call off their indefinite strike, Mutharasan said that the Union government failed to keep up their promises over fishermen issues in the past. Urging the government for a permanent solution to prevent Tamil Nadu fishermen being attacked by Sri Lankan Navy, the CPI leader said that Pakistan, whom we consider an enemy nation, does not harm our fishermen. “On the contrary, Sri Lanka whom we call a friendly nation is attacking our fishermen, killing them and causing damage to their property,” he said and added that the state government should provide security to the lives and properties of fishermen.

Claiming that 300 famers have either committed suicide or died over failure of crops in the state, he criticised the state government for announcing solatium of Rs 3 lakh to the families of 17 farmers. “The government should give solatium to families of all the farmers who died,” he said. Noting that there are close to one crore landless farmers and farm labourers, who also have been affected by the drought, he said the government should give them a compensation of Rs 25,000 for each of those families.