The protest was held at Kosavampalayam Road near Palladam in Tirupur district. The AIADMK cadres raised slogans condemning the Government's property tax hike, electricity tariff hike, milk price hike, price rise and the deteriorating law and order situation in the State.
Tirupur: AIADMK workers have been staging protests across Tamil Nadu against the hike in milk prices, electricity tariff and property tax hike enforced by the DMK Government across the State.
As part of the state-wide protest, over 200 AIADMK cadres staged a protest at Kosavampalayam Road near Palladam in Tirupur district under the leadership of former Minister Udumalai Radhakrishnan.
During the protest, the AIADMK cadres raised slogans condemning the Government's property tax hike, electricity tariff hike, milk price hike, price rise and thedeteriorating law and order situation in the State.
Following this, former Minister Udumalai Radhakrishnan spoke to reporters saying, "In 2011, late former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had announced a low-cost cable TV scheme for the people in her election manifesto. In the previous regime, we provided the cable TV scheme to 1 crore people at a low cost. There were 58,000 cable TV operators in Tamil Nadu at that time. They then said that the Central Government should switch digitally.
We took permission from the then Information and Broadcasting Minister and current Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu to telecast digitally, highlighting that the Government was providing the lowest price in the absence of any state after Amma's death. In the previous Government, we had provided 38 lakh set-top boxes.
The present Government ran a cable TV company. The Central Government has issued digital broadcasting licences to around 50 to 60 people so that anyone can run the business. The Government also competed with the private cable TV company. In the event of such a clash, there was a call from the Arasu Cable TV company that the set-top boxes received from the Government should be returned to the cable operators who were switching to the private sector.
Some of them were returned by the cable TV operators. Some people had vacated their houses and taken away the free boxes without providing information on where they shifted. Due to this, cable TV operators are facing problems in returning the set-top boxes. So the Government should call the cable TV operator and set up a committee and talk amicably and find a solution instead of prosecuting them."
"Moreover, it was during the AIADMK regime that they started several television channels. There were a couple of news channels in 2011 and now there are more than 20 news channels. It was only by the Amma Government that news channels were created and today it has grown tremendously. As a request to the Tamil Nadu Government, an all-party meeting should be convened and a decision should be taken in this regard without filing false cases against the cable TV operators," he further added.
Responding to reporters on the DMK Government's decision to grant a ministerial berth to Chepauk-Triplicane MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin on Wednesday, Minister Udumalai Radhakrishnan folded both hands and left without commenting.
Along with the 200 AIADMK cadres, Palladam MLA M S M Anandan also participated in the protest.