Athikadavu-Avinashi project row: Sengottaiyan slams skipping Jayalalithaa, MGR images on invite, banners at EPS felicitation
Pointed it out to organisers three days before the Sunday event, avoided participation over the issue, didn’t boycott it, clarifies senior AIADMK leader
COIMBATORE: Senior AIADMK leader KA Sengottaiyan on Monday expressed displeasure over leaving out the pictures of former Chief Ministers MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa in the banners of a function in Coimbatore, organised to felicitate AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami for implementing the Athikadavu-Avinashi irrigation project.
“I did not boycott (the event). But chose not to participate as the pictures of MGR and Jayalalithaa were not featured in the invitation and banners. I only expressed my feelings as those leaders gave me an identity,” said Sengottaiyan to the media in Erode.
The absence of former AIADMK minister and incumbent MLA from Gobichettipalayam at the felicitation event in Coimbatore on Sunday, organised by farmers associations, triggered a controversy.
Talking to reporters, Sengottaiyan said that in 2011, the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had sanctioned Rs 3.72 crore to execute the Athikadavu-Avinashi project. The then Public Works Department (PWD) Minister KV Ramalingam issued survey orders, he added.
“Even though Jayalalithaa was instrumental in commissioning the project, her picture was left out. I raised the issue with members of the organising committee. If I had been consulted, I would have taken this to their notice,” he said.
The AIADMK leader claimed to have expressed displeasure to the organising committee, leaving out the pictures of MGR and Jayalalithaa when they met him three days ago.
The project proposes to divert 1.5 tmc of surplus water from the downstream of Kalingarayan anicut of the Bhavani River in Erode to fill up 1,045 water bodies and irrigate 24,468 acres of farmland in Erode, Tirupur and Coimbatore districts.
