The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Ramadoss to campaign for RJD in Bihar poll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Ramadoss to campaign for RJD in Bihar poll

By Our Special Correspondent

VILLUPURAM, DEC. 23. The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder-leader, S. Ramadoss, today said he would tour Bihar to campaign for the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the Assembly elections.

For the first time he would do electioneering outside Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, Dr. Ramadoss told presspersons at his Thailapuram farmhouse near here.

He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party, along with communal forces, was conspiring to dethrone the RJD and hence it was targeting Lalu Prasad, party leader and Railway Minister.

It seemed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was yet to get over the shock of the Lok Sabha poll debacle. For the past six months the NDA constituents had not only been short-circuiting their democratic responsibilities but also paralysing parliamentary democracy, he said.

Dr. Ramadoss said that the plea made by the BJP leaders, A.B.Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, that the Kanchi Acharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, an accused in a murder case, be put under house arrest in view of his health should have been addressed to the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, rather than to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.

The PMK leader charged the BJP leaders with politicising the arrest, seeing the hand of the Centre and the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, in the episode.

Bus fare issue

Dr. Ramadoss warned that if the Tamil Nadu Government conceded the demand of the Tamil Nadu Bus Owners' Federation to increase the bus fare, the PMK, along with other Opposition parties, would launch an agitation.

He said the Federation had issued an advertisement in a section of the press seeking bus fare hike on the pretext that the prices of petroleum products had gone up.

At a time when poverty and unemployment were staring at the face of the people, owing to prolonged drought, bus fare hike would impose a heavy financial burden on them.

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