Palaniswami organising protests to retain hold over AIADMK: Minister Sivasankar
Reminding Palaniswami that property tax was first hiked in the previous AIADMK regime, Sivasankar recalled that property tax for domestic and commercial establishments was hiked between 50 and 100% in 2018 and revoked in 2019 owing to local body elections being conducted then.
CHENNAI: Slamming principal opposition party AIADMK for organising a protest against property tax hike, State Transport Minister S S Sivasankar on Tuesday said that AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) was organising such events to safeguard his hold over the party facing turbulence from within.
Reminding Palaniswami that property tax was first hiked in the previous AIADMK regime, Sivasankar recalled that property tax for domestic and commercial establishments was hiked between 50 and 100% in 2018 and revoked in 2019 owing to local body elections being conducted then.
Further recalling the statement of the then municipal administration minister S P Velumani that the withdrawal of the property tax hike was only temporary and that the union government had insisted that the property tax must be annually hiked to avail funds from it for local bodies, the DMK minister also pointed to Tamil Nadu subscribing to the Uday scheme in the AIADMK regime and said that EPS and company were claiming to oppose things they subscribed to in their regime.
“The AIADMK is suffering a lot of turbulence. Velumani is adopting a new strategy. O Panneerselvam is meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah. EPS is organising such events (protests) to safeguard his hold over the party. To do that, he is unnecessarily blaming the government and projecting things started in their (AIADMK's) regime as if they were freshly started only now,” the transport minister told media persons at DMK headquarters 'Anna Arivalayam'.
He added that the common people were witnesses to the manner in which the protests took place. “The Leader of Opposition (LoP) must stop diverting people's attention as if the things (property tax hike) are being done now. People know everything,” Sivasankar said, condemning EPS for staging a protest against the Marina air show tragedy when it was under the then AIADMK regime that anti-Sterlite protestors in Thoothukudi were killed in police firing.
Claiming that all the problems faced now were a result of the then AIADMK regime subscribing to the conditions imposed by the union government, the minister said the LoP, even if he could not support the trillion-dollar vision of the Chief Minister, must stop organising protests for bogus reasons.
