Presence of 'strong CM' will augur well for TN: Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan

Kancheepuram: Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan on Sunday said the BJP favoured “any government” in Tamil Nadu to complete its five-year term and the presence of a “strong Chief Minister” will augur well for the state.

Radhakrishnan’s comments come in the wake of the internal rumblings in the ruling AIADMK, which is now divided into two factions, one headed by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and the other by his predecessor O Panneerselvam.

“Be it any government in Tamil Nadu, that government should complete its term. This is our wholehearted desire. This government should at no cost fall,” he said.

Radhakrishnan, the Union minster of state for shipping and roadways, also called for the AIADMK to back Palaniswami. “Those in that party (AIADMK) should strengthen the chief minister of this government,” he said, in an apparent reference to Palaniswami.

“It is good for Tamil Nadu to have a strong chief minister,” Radhakrishnan, the Lok Sabha MP from Kanyakumari, told reporters at Madurantakam.

He was responding to a question on allegations that the BJP government at the Centre was behind the “confusion” in the AIADMK following the death of party supremo and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa in December.