CPM flays Governor Ravi as partner of online gaming firms

TIRUVANNAMALAI: CPM state secretary K Balakrishnan on Thursday told reporters in Tiruvannamalai that Governor RN Ravi was a partner (kootali) of the companies running online rummy games and that was why he refused to provide consent to the TN Online Gaming Bill.

Interacting with reporters after staging an agitation against the toll plaza at Inam Kariyandal on the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai town, he said Ravi had now sent back the bill stating that TN could not interfere by creating laws, which were in the central government’s domain. “Why did it take him 4 months to say this? If we send the bill back to him, he will again wait another 4 months before giving another excuse,” he added.

On the anti-toll plaza agitation, he demanded to know why the district administration was preventing the agitation when they said toll plaza was under the Centre. Though state Highways Minister EV Velu handed over a petition to Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to remove 32 toll plazas in TN, no action had been taken till date, he said.

Referring to the Inam Kariyandal (Tiruvannamalai) toll plaza he said, the facility flouted the rule that it should be 10 km from the town and that there be a distance of 60 km between successive plazas. This toll plaza was only 57 km from the one at Kannamangalam near Vellore.

Demanding that residents in a 20 square kilometer radius around the plaza be allowed to travel freely without collecting toll, he said the next course of action on the issue would be based on the response of the district administration.