All India NR Congress founder-president and Puducherry Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on Wednesday hit back at the AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for calling him a traitor in politics.
Taking strong exception to Ms. Jayalalithaa’s recent attack on him during an election rally, Mr. Rangasamy said that for the last 10 years the Tamil Nadu Government had not responded to Puducherry’s request to earmark land for expansion of a runway in the airport here.
“Puducherry can prosper only if it gets the required land. But the intention of Ms. Jayalalithaa is otherwise. If this is the stand of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, people can now come to a conclusion as to who the traitor is,” said Mr. Rangasamy.
Statehood status
He also wondered how the Congress and the BJP could ensure progress and growth in Puducherry when both the previous Congress Government and the present BJP Government in the Centre had failed to provide statehood or waive the outstanding loans of the Union Territory.
The appointments of over 3,500 persons made by this Government were scrapped on a petition filed by the Congress. If the AINRC is given another opportunity all those who were dismissed would be reinstated, he said.
Campaign at Kalapet
Kick-starting his election campaign under the scorching sun at Kalapet , Mr. Rangasamy sought the support of the voters to the party candidate N. Viswanathan.
Mr. Rangasamy said that he was grateful to the people for the overwhelming support to his party in the last Assembly elections.
Lashing out at P.M.L. Kalyanasundaram, the sitting MLA who is contesting as an Independent candidate, Mr. Rangasamy said, “The duty of an elected MLA is to abide by the direction of the party. But the legislator was about to fall into the trap of the conspiracy for a price tag during the Rajya Sabha elections.
To ensure that there was no threat to my Government I conceded the Rajya Sabha seat to another political party. Given these facts, how could the party provide a ticket for Kalyanasundaram in the coming Assembly elections?”
“We have fielded the right candidates to address the grievances of the people,” he added.
In all constituencies
Pointing out that his alliance was only with the people and not with any political party, he said that the AINRC had fielded candidates in all the 30 constituencies since he was confident that the party would emerge with a thumping majority in the assembly elections.
