Will picket UT House if rice or cash not given to poor, warns AIADMK

Talking to mediapersons here, Anbazhagan said that the government should shoulder the responsibility for the possible law and order problem during the picketing.

He charged that the government is not interested in implementing any welfare scheme including free rice and the poor people are deliberately being ‘cheated’.

The poor people are suffering a lot in the tussle between Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on whether rice or cash to be provided, he said, adding that the government had allocated Rs 160 crore towards free rice while, a sum of Rs 271 crore is required per year.

He said either rice or cash was not provided for the 3.44 lakh ration card holders here for the past 19 months.

The Chief Minister and the Welfare Minister were blaming the Lt Governor for the state of affairs, Anbazhagan said.

When the Lt Governor had directed not to supply free rice, the Cabinet should have taken a decision to provide cash for rice. The red colour ration card holders should be provided Rs 4,800 and yellow colour card holders Rs 2,400, he added. Stating that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had taken steps to provide a ‘Pongal Kit” for Rs 500 along with Rs 1,000 in cash, Anbazhagan said and demanded that Narayanasamy should also take steps to provide the same in the Union Territory for Pongal.

The AIADMK leader also demanded a probe by a sitting judge into the alleged suicide by Sub-Inspector of Police Vimal Kumar, attached to the Nettapakkam police station, here recently.