TINDIVANAM: The Education and Commerce Minister, C.Ve. Shanmugham, has said that there was no anti-incumbency factor in the current Assembly election. It showed that people had reposed faith in Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa, Mr. Shanmugham told The Hindu at Tindivanam on Monday.

Referring to criticism that the Jayalalithaa government had become unpopular due to certain harsh measures it had taken earlier, Mr. Shanmugham said initially the Government had attempted certain course corrections and when it found out that these were not to the liking of the people it had given up such measures. Asked whether it would be feasible to bear the economic burden on the free supply of 10 kg of rice every month to ration cardholders, Mr. Shanmugham said the State was in a comfortable financial position.

When he became the Commerce Minister in 2001, the accruals from commercial tax was only about Rs. 8,000 crore and now it had gone up to over Rs. 16,900 crore.

He underscored the point that unlike the DMK, the Chief Minister had announced schemes on a long-term perspective. For instance, the promise of free colour television by the DMK would only harm the children and the youth, and promote the commercial interests of the cable operators. The Minister said certain political parties had made a mockery of the mid-day meal scheme, but now they had realised its significance: for it had not only improved the literacy rate but also provided opportunity to one generation of the less fortunate people to pursue higher education.

When his attention was drawn to the demand of the PMK founder S.Ramadoss that both Chief Minister and Education Minister should resign owning moral responsibility to the answer script correction scam in the University of Madras, Mr. Shanmugham said in that case Mr Ramadoss ought to ask Union Minister of Health Anbumani to put in his papers for the leakage of the question papers of the postgraduate medical examinations, laxity in putting the Red Cross Society funds to proper use, and the delay in granting permission to the Theni government medical college.

He alleged that on the pretext of cutting down the subsidy, the Centre had drastically reduced the quantum of kerosene supplied meant for the public distribution system from 1.06 lakh kilolitres to 50,000 lakh kilolitres a month without realising the hardships caused to rural households. He charged the Centre with neglecting the interest of the domestic farmers by importing wheat. He said the AIADMK government had been holding the price line of essential commodities under check for the past five years.

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