Karunanidhi keeps up pressure, asks Jayalalithaa to answer Piyush Goyal

Continuing the war of words over Union Minister Piyush Goyal's accusation that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was "inaccessible", DMK president M Karunanidhi today said she should answer him rather than her ministerial colleagues pitching in.

"Is it not proper for the Chief Minister to come forward to answer the accusation of the Union Ministers?" he asked in a statement.

Karunanidhi referred to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar too supporting Goyal's remarks that he could not reach out to Jayalalithaa or state ministers in the last 22 months of his tenure.

"What Piyush Goyal has said is true. That is the experience of people (of the state)," Javadekar, the BJP's poll-in-charge for Tamil Nadu, had said in Delhi yesterday.

Referring to state ministers O Panneerselvam and Natham R Viswanathan's rebuttal at Goyal, Karunanidhi said, "Their statements were polemic against Union Ministers (Goyal and Javadekar), which did not answer the accusations." He asked whether Goyal had sought an appointment with Jayalalithaa to discuss the state's power issues and questioned as to "why an opportunity was not given to him to meet her."

Slamming Panneerselvam and Viswanathan, he asked, "Could these Ministers easily meet Chief Minister Jayalalithaa?" The DMK chief had earlier asked Jayalalithaa to respond to Goyal's charge.

Panneerselvam and Viswanathan had slammed Goyal for seeking political mileage and indulging in cheap politics.