Tamil Nadu polls: Basic amenities lacking in Jayalalithaa's constituency, says Piyush Goyal

CHENNAI: Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal today alleged that even basic amenities like clean drinking water was not available in Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's R K Nagar constituency, and charged that local issues had not been addressed for long.

Campaigning in support of BJP candidate M N Raja at R K Nagar here, Goyal also came down hard on the Chief Minister, saying she did not have the time for her constituency during the December 2015 deluge even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had come down "all the way" from Delhi.

"Can the Chief Minister not at least remove the wastage dumping ground from here (a long-pending local issue). Can the Chief Minister not provide clean drinking water to the people of her constituency," he said.

Not much effort has gone into the constituency even as people who elect a particular candidate "have certain expectations," he told reporters amid his campaigning here.

"I don't think just for the sake of electing a Chief Minister you can fool the people of this constituency anymore," he said.

Further, he alleged that Jayalalithaa did not come to the constituency during the time of floods.

"When the people were suffering, (she) cannot serve the the constituency, the people of the state. Prime Minister Modi came down all the way from Delhi to Chennai because his heart was with the people of Chennai, with the people of Tamil Nadu," he said.

"But the Chief Minister had no time for her people," he alleged.