Guv Ravi assures appropriate action, says BJP delegation on "PTR tape"

CHENNAI: Stepping up the offensive against Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan over the alleged audio in which the voice that resembles his talks about large-scale corruption, the opposition parties urged the Centre and Governor RN Ravi to inquire and take appropriate action.

AIADMK general secretary and Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami urged to Centre to launch an inquiry to find out if what the audio clip revealed about Rs 30,000 crore corruption by Chief Minister MK Stalin’s family members was indeed true.

Palaniswami said the AIADMK would meet Governor Ravi to lodge a complaint in this regard.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the State unit of the BJP submitted a petition to the Governor seeking an independent forensic examination of PTR’s comments. The delegation led by State vice president VP Duraisamy also demanded a probe by a one-man commission.

“The Governor assured of appropriate action. This is the first time we are giving a representation to the Governor on corruption,” Duraisamy said later.

After maintaining silence for a few days, Minister Thiaga Rajan had issued a statement on Saturday claiming that the alleged clip was a fabricated one aimed at creating a rift between him and party president MK Stalin.

Responding to this, BJP State president K Annamalai, who had posted the audio clip on social media, said in a statement that the Minister’s statement was a weak defence which could not be considered a reasonable response.

“We challenge him to produce an audio clip with same content but instead in my voice. We shall submit both audio samples to a court-monitored investigation to ascertain the genuine nature of both audio clips. I will submit my voice samples, and we expect the Minister will also do the same.”