Echoing his father and PMK founder Ramadoss’ views, the party’s Chief Ministerial aspirant Anbumani Ramadoss has claimed that the fight in the current election is “really” between him and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa only.
In an interaction with the media near here on Wednesday, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss said that while his party was banking on people’s will and broad-based support, Ms. Jayalalithaa was depending on money power to purchase votes. There was no support for the ruling party among the people and in particular, the youth were vexed with the misdeeds of the AIADMK and the DMK and were looking up to the PMK as the real alternative, he said.
Alleging that the Election Commission was lax in dealing with electoral malpractice, Dr. Anbumani said that his party was losing confidence in the fairness of the polls. “We genuinely fear whether the Assembly elections will be conducted in a free and fair manner under the present circumstances,” the PMK leader wondered.
Pointing to the seizure of “several crores of rupees meant for purchasing votes from those close to the ruling party”, Dr. Anbumani said their fear was genuinely grounded as “most of the officials including the police were siding with the AIADMK resulting in only a fragment of the seized money being declared, he alleged.
The PMK leader said that in his regime, new separate ministers would man Agriculture, Horticulture and Irrigation Management for the benefit of farmers. A sum of Rs. 50,000 crore would be set apart for implementing 20 existing water management projects and for dredging rivers and channels. “We will increase the cultivation area from the present 47 lakh hectares to one crore hectares,” he said.
Plans would be in place to build barrages and check dams across major river courses at an interval of 5 km within 20 years for harnessing all available water and avoid wastage of precious water, Dr. Anbumani added.
