O Panneerselvam terms Piyush Goyal allegations baseless

Chennai: AIADMK treasurer and finance minister O. Panneerselvam on Monday termed Union Minister Piyush Goyal charge that his repeated attempts to meet Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa failed baseless allegations and accused him of trying to seek political mileage in poll-bound state. He alleged that AIADMK delegation’s attempt to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over state fishermen’s issue and GAIL  pipeline matter “failed”.

“There is no iota of truth in these allegations which are  baseless, and made for po-litical mileage,” AIADMK treasurer and state finance minister O. Panneerselvam said in a detailed rebuttal. His statement came in the wake of Goyal’s remarks at a meeting in Delhi that went viral on social media, had said he was unable to meet TN Chief Minister nor state ministers during the last 22 months of his tenure.  

Mr Panneerselvam listed out the meetings Jayalalithaa had with members of the union cabinet, right from PM Narendra Modi to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, both in Delhi and Chennai since 2014. “It is condemnable that  Piyush Goyal has made such  baseless allegations for political mileage in a situation  where the AIADMK under the leadership of Amma  cannot be defeated at all,” he said.