Chennai: Days after an allegation by Union minister of state for power Piyush Goyal that he couldn’t meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa regarding power projects, his ministry has now replied to an RTI applicant that it has no information of the correspondence.
Petitioner P.B. Deepak from Voice of Indian, an NGO, sought details of correspondence between the Union power ministry and Tamil Nadu government after the minister’s allegation. He also sought details of the number of calls made seeking the Chief Minister’s appointment and dates.
The power ministry’s undersecretary in his reply to the application said no such information was available in their records. “Piyush Goyal had issued a politically motivated statement. It has been proved by the Union power ministry’s reply,” said Deepak. Besides Tamil Nadu, many other states have not joined Uday scheme. When asked, AIADMK spokesperson C.R. Saraswathi said, “After knowing that the AIADMK is not forming an alliance with BJP, Piyush Goyal had levelled this baseless allegation. Senior ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman met the CM on various occasions. Even Venkaiah Naidu has said our CM is accessible.”
“The CM has written a letter seeking some changes in the Uday scheme as the existing scheme is more beneficial to private companies than State governments and people. But the Union power ministry has not replied to it,” she said.
