Jaya reminds voters of `corrupt' Karuna family

AIADMK general secretary and chief minister J Jayalalithaa has upped the ante in the election battle against her archrival DMK, tearing into party chief M Karunanidhi and his family members on corruption charges faced by them.
Addressing a public meeting at Villupuram on Friday, Jayalalithaa was strident in her allegations against Karunanidhi. She dedicated a substantial portion of her speech on the alleged failures of his earlier regimes and the various corruption charges faced by his family members in a bid to keep the charges alive in the minds of the voters.
AIADMK rode high on corruption charges against DMK and emerged victorious in 2011 assembly and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, having thrown in for good measure alleged interference by Karunanidhi's family members in the functioning of the government.In her campaigns for this election too, Jayalalithaa has emphasised that “the shadow of 2G spectrum allocation, coal, Adarsh housing and Commonwealth games scams will not just fade away from public memory“.
Recalling the feud between Karunanidhi and his grandnephews Kalanithi and Dayanidhi Maran, she said the DMK chief himself had wondered how the Maran family “became super rich in a short span of time“. Karunanidhi was envious about their growth in the media world and expressed his displeasure openly when his wife Dayalu Ammal had to relinquish 20% of Sun TV shares, Jayalalithaa said.
Karunanidhi was angry against the Maran family for publishing a series of articles against former Union minister A Raja and then state electricity minister Arcot Veerasamy and directed the Sun TV management to vacate their office from DMK headquarters Anna Arivalayam. “Karunanidhi must explain how the two families reunited after resolving these issues within a short span of time and what happened in the background,“ she said.
Jayalalithaa said DMK has been daydreaming that it can win the election by launching a false propaganda that her government did not fulfill its poll promises. She said it was DMK, which did not fulfill its poll promises. The DMK had promised a housing scheme, cold storage facilities in major cities and towns, sports centres and BPOs in all districts and widening of the east coast road between Cuddalore and Kannyakumari, but miserably failed in implementing any of them except the free colour television scheme.
“Karunanidhi will make a series of promises, but later he will analyze whether implementing the schemes will benefit him and his family members. If there is no benefit he will not execute the scheme,“ she said, adding that he had allegedly fooled people even in the free television scheme by reducing the size of the sets.