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Severe than Emergency raids, says Minister

By Our Staff Reporter

VELLORE Aug. 9. The raids carried out by the `Q' branch police in the premises of the MDMK head office in Chennai and in the residences of the party general secretary, Vaiko, on Thursday were on a larger scale than those carried out during the Emergency period, M. Kannappan, MDMK leader and Union Minister of State for Non-Conventional Energy Resources, said here today.

Talking to presspersons after meeting Mr. Vaiko in the Central prison here, Mr. Kannappan said though the raids were carried out with the permission of the courts, raids of such nature were not carried out in the residences of political party leaders ``even when repression was let loose during the Emergency rule in 1976.'' In spite of this, the partymen and the family members of Mr. Vaiko offered ``total cooperation'' to the police in carrying out the raids.

``I cannot comment on the matter,'' Mr. Kannappan said when asked about the letter written by the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, to the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, demanding that he be sacked from the Union Ministry for his ``pro-LTTE speeches.'' He claimed that he had no information on it and that he did not discuss it with the Prime Minister when he met him in Parliament.

The Union Minister of State for Finance, Gingee Ramachandran, accompanied Mr. Kannappan to the prison.

``We are coming to meet Mr. Vaiko as we consider it our primary duty and we have come to meet him only after attending to our duties,'' he said when asked whether the two ministers' official work was not affected by their meeting Mr. Vaiko frequently in the jail.

To another question, he said the MDMK MPs would vote for the NDA candidate in the Vice-Presidential election.

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