Save Raja Campaign No Effect

Continuing her attack on the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu over the 2G spectrum scam, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa today said its Save Raja campaign would prove counter-productive.

"The campaign to save former Union Telecom Minister Raja will boomerang on them," she told reporters here.

Noting that the CBI investigation into the case was progressing in the "right direction", she said "I am sure it will reach a logical conclusion".

Terming the 2G spectrum scam as one of the "biggest in the world", she said the image of the DMK, which had already been dented, had been demolished with the scam.

To a question about her party's support to the UPA government, she said, "I had already made my position clear on the matter. Now it is up to how developments take place".

Jayalalithaa had recently offered to support the UPA government if the Congress dumped DMK from its alliance in the wake of the 2G scam, but Congress had rejected it.

The AIADMK supremo said DMK had tried "very hard" in the past five years to pin her down. "But they could not find any wrongdoing on my part as Chief Minister and were not able to foist any case on me."

On the Mullaperiyar dam issue, she said there was "no justification" for the Kerala government's plan to construct a new dam to replace the century-old Mullaperiyar reservoir.

The new dam would only result in depriving water to five districts of Tamil Nadu, she said, affecting even the food security of the country.

Jayalalithaa said the proposed dam is only 400 metres downstream of the existing dam and so would lie on the same seismic fault as that of the old structure.

Hence Kerala's contention of an earthquake threat to the old dam would not hold water, she said.

The only thing that would happen with construction of a new dam was cancellation of the 999 years lease agreement entered into between the two states in 1886, Jayalalithaa said.

The AIADMK chief had in a statement yesterday appealed to the Kerala government to reconsider the proposed construction of the new dam.

Source: expressbuzz.com