Tamil Nadu
at large, and with their wish, and with their prosperity we would like to continue this business.”
The Tamil Nadu government has constituted an inquiry commission to probe the matter. The commission is headed by Aruna Jagadeesan, a retired judge of the Madras high court
Chief minister Palaniswami noted that past protests against the plant had been peaceful. “This time around, it (protest) turned violent. It was due to instigation by some political parties and owing to infiltration by antisocial elements,” Palaniswamy, who is under relentless opposition attack over the shooting, said
Opposition Dravida MUnnektra Kazhagam’s working president M K Stalin was on Thursday detained while holding a protest at the state secretariat against the police firings.
Demanding the resignation of Palaniswami and sacking of state police chief T K Rajendran, Stalin staged a sit-in with party MLAs at the Fort St George complex. Opposition parties on Thursday called for a ‘Tamil Nadu bandh’ on Friday and sought the resignation of the Tamil Nadu government, led by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, for the Thoothukudi violence. chats with Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejaswi Yadav and others. She even shook hands with CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury—a rare moment in their mutual history. When she asked Yechury about his wellbeing in Bengali, Yechury retorted in the same tongue, “You know what is happening with my party in Bengal”, referring to the recent panchayat poll violence.
Ironically, Yechury also emphasised on the need for a state-specific approach to oust the BJP from the Centre. According to insiders, he told Congress president Rahul Gandhi and a few other leaders how his party’s late general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet used to say, “Let us go from region to region to maximise seats.” Gandhi told him that they would meet up soon to take forward the plans for 2019.
The galaxy of the Opposition leaders was also keen to send out the right signal from the dais. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jharkhand CM Babulal Marandi wanted to know what should be the central message. Yechury told them to tell people that they have gathered after “foiling the efforts of the BJP to kidnap democracy by forming government even after losing election and for the first time, the winning combination got 56.6% of people’s votes in the state.”
Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, who recently broke away from the NDA, also met Banerjee. Sources close to her said that tough she wants the Congress to take on the BJP in certain states, she is not open to its leadership in a federal front.