TN CM had put major time, effort into her ‘power’ speechFRIDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2012 00:21 PNS | CHENNAI
That the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister stormed out of Vigyan Bhavan on Thursday is not surprising, given the fact that she spent nearly the whole of last month preparing her speech for the NDC meeting.
“She was very particular that all pertinent points concerning the State should be there in the speech. She had even called a two-day meeting of the district collectors and senior police officers to double check the details,” a senior bureaucrat told The Pioneer.
He said the Chief Minister was trying her best to find a solution to the power crisis faced by the State.
“The letters she sent to PM Manmohan Singh speak volumes of her effort to get the Centre to release power from the National Grid to Tamil Nadu. Though the Centre could have solved the power crisis easily, they are playing politics at the instance of the DMK which is the second major constituent of the UPA after the Congress,” said the bureaucrat who did not want to be named.
During the last three weeks, all officials in Fort Saint George, the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu Government, were busy preparing a list of the State’s demands to be put before the NDC meeting.
Appreciating her seriousness, last week, one of the prominent farmer leaders who is a known critic of the Chief Minister, said she was doing whatever she could in her capacity to get Karnataka to release more water to water-starved Tamil Nadu.
http://dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/118616-tn-cm-had-put-major-time-effort-into-her-power-speech.html
‘Big humiliation’, Jaya walks out of NDC meet
FRIDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2012 00:21 PNS | NEW DELHI
Miffed at not being allowed to deliver her full speech, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday walked out of the National Development Council (NDC) meeting, accusing the Centre of humiliating her and stifling the voice of Chief Ministers.
The clang of a bell, signaling her to wind up her speech midway, mere ten minutes after she began her address, provoked Jayalalithaa to slam the Centre for treating State Governments as its ‘regents.’
Jayalalithaa, who was on the tenth page of her 28-page speech when she was interrupted by the bell, accused the Centre of “stifling” the voice of Chief Ministers by restricting speeches to ten minutes.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister was the first speaker after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s inaugural address. She began her speech by accusing the Centre of ignoring the Opposition-ruled States and blaming the Prime Minister for not responding to her letters.
Just as she was listing the demands of her State, the bell rang signaling an end of her allotted time.
Calling it an “unheard practice” and accusing the Centre of treating the States as its “regents”, she walked out of Vigyan Bhavan leaving behind the stunned gathering of Chief Ministers, Prime Minister and others. Emerging from the
hall, Jayalalithaa talked to mediapersons, and again blasted the Centre.
“The Centre has invented a new method to humiliate Chief Ministers. They are stifling the voices of Opposition-ruled States. I have attended several meetings of the NDC. This time there is an unheard of practice of installing a bell to force the Chief Ministers to conclude the speech within ten minutes. Such methods can’t be tolerated. This is a big humiliation,” The enraged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister said placing a lengthy Plan document before the Chief Ministers and asking them to limit their speech to ten minutes, showed the mentality of the Centre. “We are not regents of the minority ruling coterie of Delhi,” she said.
She said there had been many occasions where the Chief Ministers were allowed to speak for 25 to 35 minutes.
“The Plan document itself is so lengthy and encompasses so many subjects. If they wanted to allow us just ten minutes and humiliate us in this way, they need not have called us all the way to Delhi to participate in this meeting,” she said.
Jayalalithaa said on an important issue like finalising the 12th Plan document, they should have extended the duration of the NDC meeting to two to three days.
The Chief Minister then went to Tamil Nadu Bhawan and left for Chennai by a State-owned aircraft, cutting short her stay in the Capital.
In her speech, Jayalalithaa said: “no reasonable and legitimate suggestion from the States has been accepted and the big brotherly and undemocratic approach of superimposing on elected State Governments the dubious policies, priorities and programmes of a minority ruling coterie in Delhi has prevailed.
“We get the impression that the Government at the Centre is indifferent about reducing poverty. The Union Government, far from serving the common man, is conspiring against him by hiking the prices of essential commodities and appears more focused on facilitating the interests of foreign investors.”
“The regime at the Centre, caught up in the daily squabbles of its constituents, in merely trying to survive from day-to-day, has neither the time nor the inclination to pay attention to the problems of the people of this country.”
Jayalalithaa accused the Centre of being “completely ineffective” in playing its constitutional role in ensuring that the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was duly notified so that it could be implemented, and the right of Tamil Nadu as a lower riparian state was protected.
“The Central Government has also failed in protecting the citizens of the country - the fishermen belonging to Tamil Nadu - from attacks across the maritime boundary,” she said.
She made a scathing attack on the Prime Minister for not responding to several letters written by her.
Jayalalithaa said even a simple request from a state PSU for a Digital Addressable
System (DAS) Licence for Chennai City had not been granted on totally extraneous considerations and alleged that the delay was intended to facilitate the switching over of subscribers to a family-owned TV network.
This was a clear reference to the Maran-owned Sun TV network. The Centre was quick to reject her charges of discrimination, saying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had showed a gesture by giving her chance to speak out of turn, immediately after him, and that the same time limit applied to Congress Chief Ministers as well. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla accused Jayalalithaa of “making an issue out of a non-issue” and said the NDC meeting should be used by Chief Ministers to achieve something for the people of their state.
http://dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/118617-big-humiliation-jaya-walks-out-of-ndc-meet.html
Centre playing big brother, unfair on TN, says Jayalalithaa
Author: Express News Service
Published Date: Dec 28, 2012 8:36 AM
Last Updated: Dec 28, 2012 8:36 AM
Vehemently criticising the Centre for its failure on every front, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday charged that the UPA regime had turned down every legitimate request of the State and stymied every one of its initiatives.
“We have repeatedly demanded action on critical issues affecting our State but the Centre has failed to take cognisance”, the CM observed at the 57th National Development Council meeting in New Delhi.
Taking a rather critical view of the 12th Plan Document, Jayalalithaa said, “I had made several valuable and useful suggestions on the Approach Paper to the 12th Plan. Given that it took nearly 14 months for the final draft to be prepared, I had a fond hope that at least some of the suggestions made in the last NDC meeting would find their way into the final Plan Document.”
“But,” she added, “I found that no reasonable and legitimate suggestion from the states has been accepted and the big brotherly and undemocratic approach of superimposing on elected state governments the dubious policies, priorities and programmes of a minority ruling coterie in Delhi has prevailed.” What she meant was, instead of a being consensual document evolved out of a discussion with States, the Plan Document read like the agenda of a political party that governs in alliance with coalition partners. “The regime at the Centre, is caught up in the daily squabbles of its constituents, in merely trying to survive from day to day, has neither the time nor the inclination to pay attention to the problems of this country,” she said, in her speech.
Jayalalithaa further charged that the Centre was insensitive to requests and demands made by Tamil Nadu on critical issues like power, infrastructure development, Cauvery water and assistance packages. Such vindictive and discriminative act of the Centre was highly condemnable, she added.
The CM also blamed the Centre for its inadequate support for TN’s infrastructure initiatives and lack of access to Central government lands even for projects like airports, metro-rail and road projects.
She also flayed the Centre on the Cauvery dispute: “The Centre has been completely ineffective in playing its constitutional role in ensuring that the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was duly notified.”
While the Centre’s general approach towards states was condescending, when one analyses the data regarding allocations for individual states in the 11th Plan, the unfairness displayed towards Tamil Nadu takes one’s breath away, she added.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/article1397534.ece#