Investors shying away from Tamil Nadu: Rahul

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday alleged that investors had shied away from Tamil Nadu during the past five years due to the absence of a focused approach by the government.

“In the absence of people centric initiatives, the State only saw suicides by farmers and closing down of industries,” he charged at an election rally in Coimbatore.

Referring to the ruling AIADMK’s manifesto, that was loaded with freebies, he demanded to know if the Chief Minister had fulfilled the promises that she had made in her party’s 2011 poll manifesto.

Stating that Coimbatore is a manufacturing centre for pumps, Mr Rahul Gandhi exhorted the crowd to tell him when Ms. Jayalalithaa last visited a pump manufacturing unit to ascertain the problems of the industry.

Earlier addressing a mammoth meeting in Madurai, Mr. Rahul Gandhi alleged that unemployment was high and “corruption has gone up at every level.”

Nobody was interested in investing in the State as they knew that they would have to pay people in government, he charged.

The Congress and DMK had come together to make Tamil Nadu “the best performing State.” He promised the electorate of a humble, receptive and accessible leadership that would not remain an island away from the voters.

Assuring to restore ‘Kamaraj rule’ in Tamil Nadu, he said the alliance if voted to power would implement total prohibition in the State. Touching upon the mid-day meal scheme introduced by the Congress Chief Minister Kamaraj in the State in the fifties, he said it was introduced despite ridicule by the bureaucrats and experts. The late Chief Minister said that come what may, the scheme should be implemented just because he knew the pulse and expectations of the people.

DMK treasurer Stalin, who was on stage, said that he and Mr. Rahul Gandhi had the same thinking and they were convinced that secularism and development were inseparable twins.

In Coimbatore, TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan and DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi participated.

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