Refuting charges that Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Electricity V. Senthilbalaji’s arrest was politically motivated, Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai on Wednesday said Chief Minister M.K. Stalin must refer to his own old statements where he had made the same allegations against the Minister for which he has been arrested now.
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Mr. Annamalai was referring to the corruptions allegations made by Mr. Stalin in 2016 against Mr. Senthilbalaji who was the Transport Minister in the AIADMK government from 2011 to 2015.
Addressing the media, Mr. Annamalai said the arrest had come after the Supreme Court’s orders, reprimanding the alleged attempts to dilute the case against Mr. Senthilbalaji and allowing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to continue its probe.
Mr. Senthilbalaji was arrested early on the morning of Wednesday, June 14, 2023 after an 18-hour interrogation at his residence. He was later taken to the Government Multi Super-Specialty Hospital, Omandurar, where he subsequently underwent a coronary angiogram and was advised surgery.
Mr. Annamalai alleged that Mr. Stalin had defended the powers of the Income Tax Department when it conducted searches at the Secretariat when the AIADMK was in power in 2016. That being the case, he asked how could Mr. Stalin oppose the ED conducting a search at the Minister’s chamber at the Secretariat now.
The BJP leader also criticised Mr. Stalin and other Ministers for visiting Mr. Senthilbalaji at the hospital. He said the reaction from the DMK was not as strong even when DMK MP Kanimozhi was arrested on corruption charges in 2011. “Today, [virtually] the entire Cabinet is visiting him at the hospital,” he said. He urged Mr. Stalin to relieve Mr. Senthilbalaji from the Cabinet.
On criticisms that the ED did not follow due process during the arrest, he said the ED was a professional organisation and he was confident that they would present all necessary documents to prove otherwise in the Madras High Court on Wednesday.
AIADMK alliance
Mr. Annamalai dismissed the possibility that the people would see it as a contradiction that the BJP, while opposing corruption in Tamil Nadu, continued to be an ally of the AIADMK, which was the ruling party when Mr. Senthilbalaji indulged in his alleged corruption as a Minister.
While claiming that the BJP was committed to making Tamil Nadu free of corruption, he said there was no contradiction in its alliance with the AIADMK. Alliances were about “unequal” political parties with “different qualities” coming together
Stating that the AIADMK-BJP alliance was intact, he said Union Home Minister Amit Shah in fact wanted to meet AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami during his recent visit to Tamil Nadu, but the meeting did not happen as the latter was undergoing treatment for a medical problem.
On the recent tensions in the AIADMK-BJP alliance, he said his statements were misunderstood. Referring to his allusory remarks on late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s conviction in a corruption case, he said that he had only pointed out what had happened. He stressed that he had spoken highly of Jayalalithaa on several occasions and had never intended to defame her.
