Chennai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday said that soon after Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader V. Senthil Balaji was granted bail in a money laundering case, Chief Minister M.K. The Supreme Court’s question on his reinstatement in the Stalin-led state cabinet was actually ‘focussed’ on the Chief Minister and that he should immediately sack his cabinet colleague.
Tamil Nadu BJP unit vice-president and party spokesperson Narayanan Tirupati drew attention to the question of ‘what is happening’ asked by the Supreme Court regarding the reinstatement of Senthil Balaji and said that this question was asked to the Chief Minister.
Tirupati said in a post on social media platform ‘X’, “Was Senthil Balaji the reason for this question? No. This question has been asked to Chief Minister MK Stalin. Becoming a minister is not Senthil Balaji’s crime. The question is why Stalin brought him back as a minister.” He said Stalin, as a ‘responsible Chief Minister’, could have told Senthil Balaji that he would be made a minister ‘after coming out of the matter’.
The BJP leader claimed that Senthil Balaji remained behind bars for ‘more than 400 days’ because there was a possibility that he might ‘put pressure on witnesses’ in the case. “In such a situation, only Chief Minister Stalin will have to answer as to why Balaji should become a minister again,” he said. “The Chief Minister should understand what the Supreme Court has said and immediately remove Senthil Balaji from the cabinet,” he said. Should be removed….”
Tirupati said that before Senthil Balaji joined DMK five years ago, the Chief Minister had criticized him a lot, ‘called him corrupt and then demanded action against him.’ The Supreme Court on Monday expressed concern over the reinstatement of Balaji as a cabinet minister in Tamil Nadu. Just a few days ago, the Supreme Court had granted him bail in a money laundering case related to the cash-for-jobs scam. The court had agreed to hear the petition raising concerns over the independence of witnesses in this case.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih asked senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Balaji, “We granted you bail and a few days later you became a minister. One would think that now the witnesses would be under pressure because of the senior cabinet minister. What is this happening?”