EPS criticising CM’s tour to cover up AIADMK’s corruption: Thennarasu

CHENNAI: State Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Wednesday said that Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami was spreading falsehood about Chief Minister M K Stalin's foreign tour to divert public attention from the corruption of the previous AIADMK regime and the disproportionate assets cases pending against his former cabinet colleagues.

Condemning EPS for his critique of the CM's nine-day foreign tour to Singapore and Japan, Thennarasu, in a statement issued this morning, said that the LoP, who learnt that the CM was leaving on a foreign tour to attract investments, organised a rally a day earlier and submitted a half-baked complaint alleging deterioration in the law and order situation in the State.

Remarking that the same Palaniswami had turned a blind eye when young women complained of sexual harassment in Pollachi and a woman IPS officer accused harassment by her senior in the previous AIADMK regime, the finance minister referred to the LoP's famous "learnt from television" remark about the Thoothukudi police firing and said that Palaniswami was organizing rallies and issuing statements to cover up his inner party crisis and chargesheet framed against a couple of his former cabinet colleagues in disproportionate assets cases.

Did your son visit the US to invest bribes overseas?

A jealous Palaniswami, who has newly discovered that investment means the bribe he gets, has criticised CM's business trip, the minister said, wondering if the LoP's son had visited the USA prior to Palaniswami's 13-day foreign tour only to park his ill-gotten bribe money abroad.

Seeking to know if the AIADMK ministers had gone on a foreign tours in the pretext of inviting industrialists for Global Investors Meet only to invest their ill-gotten money abroad, the minister said that the LoP who spreads misinformation about state sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin's foreign trip must explain why his son and former cabinet colleagues took foreign tours back then.

Remarking that the true face of EPS would be known when the mysteries in the Kodanadu murder cum heist case are unravelled, the Finance Minister said that an analysis of the investments said to be attracted during his reign laid bare the administrative inefficiency of EPS which signed MoUs for the sake of it.

Advising EPS not to ridicule the business trip of the CM, Thennarasu said that EPS does not have the moral right or credentials to criticize the DMK regime.