Will continue efforts to make Tamil Nadu number 1 in country: Jaya

CHENNAI: As her government entered its third year in office, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today assured the people of continuing efforts to make Tamil Nadu the leading state in the country and restoring its lost rights.


"I will continue to struggle to uphold the rights of the state, retrieve its lost rights and make the state number one in India," she said while replying to felicitations by opposition parties, including Congress and Left parties.

While AIADMK members celebrated the occasion by heaping encomiums on Jayalalithaa for various pro-welfare programmes like free rice and laptops for the poor and the students, members of the opposition, barring DMDK and DMK, also appreciated the schemes.

The main opposition, DMDK, did not attend the session and DMK members also boycotted it.

Though the Jayalalithaa government has been credited with securing notification of the Cauvery tribunal award in the gazette from the Centre, it is also locked in inter-state water disputes with Kerala (Mullaperiar) and Andhra Pradesh (Palar).

Jayalalithaa has often charged the Centre with meting out "step-motherly treatment" to Tamil Nadu on various issues.

The Chief Minister slammed arch rival and DMK chief M Karunanidhi for his constant criticism, especially about the suo motu statements by her on the floor of the Assembly.

She said Karunanidhi could not stand "accolades" showered by the people on her government's performance and listed various achievements in the last two years.

On the industrial front, 17 MoUs have been signed for investments worth Rs 26,000 crore in the last two years which would create 1.70 lakh employment opportunities, she said.