Sell your properties to waive off loans: Ponnar to Congress, DMK MPs

CHENNAI: Former Union Minister and BJP senior Pon Radhakrishnan threw down the gauntlet at Congress MP Su. Thirunavukkarasar asking him to specify the date on which he could abdicate all his properties for the benefit of the people. And the Congress MP and his allies as well should be prepared to convert their personal properties into assets to fulfil their poll assurances, he said.

“Let Thirunavukkarasar specify the date and Pon Radhakrishnan will come to donate his entire property to fund welfare projects for the people. I am ready. Is he (Thirunavukkarasar), his party MPs and allies ready to do the same?” Mr. Radhakrishnan asked on Sunday. The BJP senior said if such a thing happened the people of Tamil Nadu would then stand to gain. “If they do it then several thousands of crores of rupees could be spent for the well-being of the people,” he added.

Mr. Radhakrishnan, who had been former Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping, had during his visit to Tiruchy on June 14 slammed the DMK-combine for winning the April Lok Sabha elections by making false and unfeasible poll assurances. He sought to know if the 37 newly elected MPs would fulfil their poll promises on waiving off farm and education loans by selling their own assets.

“If they failed to keep up their poll promises, then it means they are continuing the same politics they practised after they won the 1967 election,” he said referring to DMK founder C. N. Annadurai’s promise of “munru padi latchiyam, oru padi nichayam (three measures of rice is our goal, (but) one measure is sure).
Reacting to Mr. Radhakrishnan’s taunt, former TNCC chief Su Thirunavukkarasar on Sunday retorted, “Let Pon Radhakrishnan practice what he has preached.”

“He had been a Union Minister for five years. Let him first sell his property and deposit the money in a bank,” Thirunavukkarasar had taunted. The DMK-combine, which trounced the AIADMK, had won 37 out of 38 it contested in the April Lok Sabha elections including 8 by the Congress. Pon Radhakrishnan unsuccessfully contested from his home constituency of Kanyakumari where he lost to Congress senior H. Vasantha Kumar.