If the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, is voted to power, he will ensure uninterrupted water and power supply to Tamil Nadu, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam founder Vijayakant has said.
Campaigning for his party candidate C.R. Jayasankar here on Friday, Mr. Vijayakant said inadequate water supply and erratic power supply caused the people hardship.
Industrial activity ground to a halt, and the AIADMK’s promise to revive the Cuddalore Port and set up fish and cashew processing units here remained unfulfilled.
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If elected to power, Mr. Modi would solve the water and power crises, he said, but added it would take two years to ease the situation as it could not be done in a trice by invoking
Mr. Vijayakant said the chemical units in the SIPCOT industrial estate had polluted the atmosphere, soil and sea. Besides causing the people health problems, the discharge of untreated effluents into the sea had affected the marine wealth.
He said that owing to the difference of opinion between Commercial Taxes Minister and Cuddalore MLA M.C. Sampath and Municipal Chairman C.R. Subramanian, development projects, including the underground drainage, had stalled.
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Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who attributed the power crisis to a conspiracy, had not taken any initiative to augment generation capacity.
Earlier, in a road show at Vriddhachalam, Mr. Vijayakant said that since the people of the town had helped him make a political debut, he had high regard for them.
At Vadalur, he said the nearby Kurinjipadi, famous for bed sheets and lungis, was languishing for want of power and an exorbitant rise in yarn prices.
The contract workers of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation had been fighting for the past two decades to get their services regularised, but no government did help them.
As long as the DMK and the AIADMK were in power alternately, the State would not grow. Therefore, the people should drive these parties out of the political scene by voting the NDA to power, he said.