Hitting back at Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi for asking his party cadres to highlight scams allegedly involving her, AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa on Sunday accused the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president of trying to “divert attention” of the people from the 2G spectrum scam.
The DMK chief had recently asked his partymen to reach out to people through public meetings and remind them of the various scams allegedly involving Ms. Jayalalithaa including the ongoing disproportionate assets case in Bangalore.
On the disproportionate assets case, she said it was a “foisted one” and declined to comment as it was sub-judice and said truth would be established when the court gave its verdict.
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Saying that she had come out clean in cases including the Tamil Nadu Small Industries (TANSI) land case, Ms. Jayalalithaa said Mr. Karunanidhi was harping on these issues only to divert attention.
In the TANSI case, “where a firm, in which I was a shareholder, had purchased lands from it when I was Chief Minister, I had later returned the land. So there is no question of any loss to government,” she said in a statement.
The charge against Ms. Jayalalithaa and her confidante Sasikalaa was that the firm in which they were partners had purchased the TANSI land at cheap rates. Though a trial court had convicted Ms. Jayalalithaa, she was later acquitted by the Madras High Court, which the Supreme Court also upheld.
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“This is an attempt by Mr. Karunanidhi to only divert attention from the 2G spectrum allocation scam, (involving former Union Minister A Raja) which is of Himalayan proportions,” she said.
She also slammed Mr. Karunanidhi for saying that the CAG report’s assertion that the loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore from spectrum allocation was “presumptive.” “Only the quantity of the loss is presumptive, not the very loss caused.” “The people of the state are preparing to oust this DMK government,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said in an apparent reference to next year’s Assembly polls.