Karunanidhi’s poser to CM on granite scam row

Chennai: Dismissing Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam’s arguments put forth in defence of the AIADMK regime in the granite scam row, DMK president M. Karunanidhi on Tuesday wondered why the CM was silent and did not move the court if there was an alleged cover up of the scam during the previous DMK regime as he had alleged.

In a statement issued here, Karunanidhi also asked if any court had directed the state government to constitute a commission of inquiry to probe the granite mining scam during the previous DMK tenure.

Recalling the most recent verdict of the Madras high court, which had imposed a cost of '10,000 and directed the state to issue orders within four days for constituting the Sagayam commission of inquiry, the DMK president sarcastically said the Chief Minister was replying to him instead of the court, which had passed the order.

Karunanidhi also dared the CM for a comparison of cases booked against the media in his and incumbent AIADMK regimes. Picking holes in CM’s statement defending the state on the issue, the DMK president sarcastically said that Panneerselvam had given a certificate of Jayalalithaa’s regime by admitting that the collector had tabled a report of the granite mining scam issue in May 2012, a year after then chief minister Jayalalithaa sought the report.

Karunanidhi also sought to know if the state would have drawn the Madras high court’s condemnation if only it had agreed and constituted the inquiry commission, as was directed by the court earlier.