Ponnaiyan: Pollachi sex scam won’t affect AIADMK’s poll prospects

Salem: Former state minister and AIADMK’s organising secretary, C. Ponnaiyan said on Monday that the recent ‘Pollachi sex scam’ in which scores of young girls were sexually exploited for threats and extortion, was not a setback for the ruling party in run-up to the April 18 Lok Sabha and Assembly bye-polls.

Speaking after inaugurating an AIADMK election office at the ‘Salem Five Roads junction’ here, Ponnaiyan asserted that the ‘sex scam’ will not affect the AIADMK’s poll prospects in any way.

Ponnaiyan charged that it was the opposition DMK leader M.K. Stalin who was making baseless charges against the ruling AIADMK in this regard, adding, it would not wash with the people.

Expressing the hope that the AIADMK-BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu would sweep the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Ponnaiyan coined a new slogan saying, “a victory for Two Leaves (the AIADMK’s poll symbol) will be a victory for Sri Narendra Modiji.”

It is true there were differences between the BJP and AIADMK, but “now I understand Sri Modiji has given an assurance on all the demands raised by our Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami,” Ponnaiyan said. He even defended the Neet exam stating it was helping to raise the educational standards in Tamil Nadu. Palaniswami in his poll tour now, was drawing huge crowds, he added.

On the Madras high court setting aside the election of Bose (now deceased) from Tiruparankundram Assembly constituency on the ground that the thumb impression obtained on his nomination papers when party chief J Jayalalithaa was in hospital was invalid, Ponnaiyan surprisingly claimed that the “case is still pending.” It was not immediately clear whether he meant that the AIADMK would go on appeal against the Madras high court order in the Bose election case.