The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Minister's challenge to CLP leader

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 02, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Minister's challenge to CLP leader

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 1. The Minister for Animal Husbandry, P.V. Damodhiran, today dared the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, S.R. Balasubramoniyan, to test his popularity among the electorate by quitting the Assembly and seeking election from Pongalur, his home constituency.

Mr. Damodhiran threw the challenge, replying to a debate on the demand for grants to his department in the Assembly.

Referring to the reported remarks by Mr. Balasubramoniyan countering Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's charge that the CLP leader had become ungrateful though she campaigned for him in the 2001 Assembly poll, the Minister said none of the candidates belonging to the Congress, the Pattali Makkal Katchi, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or the Communist Party of India would have emerged successful at the hustings and entered the House "without the support of our Amma."

The Minister said he was prepared to quit as MLA from Pongalur with the Chief Minister's consent. "Will Mr. Balasubramoniyan resign from Thondamuthur, which he represents in the Assembly and seek re-election from Pongalur [from where he was elected twice in 1989 and 1991]," he asked. He was prepared to undergo any ordeal if the CLP leader got elected from there, the Minister said.

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