DMK hijacking credit for Motorola investment: Jaya

Chennai, June 9 : Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today claimed that her government had signed an MoU with Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world, for setting up Motorola, but the present DMK government was trying to ''hijack credit'' for it.

Stating that the MoU was signed in March 2006 in her presence during her term as Chief Minsiter with Mr Terry Gou of Foxconn, Chairman and CEO, Ms Jayalalithaa, in a statement here said no publicity was given to the project as the Model code of conduct for the assembly elections was in force then.

The MoU was for the setting up of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) jointly with the US telecom equipment company Motorala and the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) at Sriperumbudur and the facility was to be called the ''Sriperumbudur H-tech Innovation Park SEZ'', she said.

She said all the groundwork for the project was done by her government. But could not be publicised in view of the model code of conduct. However, there was photographic and videographic evidence of the signing of MoU, she said.

The Foxconn investment for the project was Rs 485 crore. It was a flagship company, in which Motorola was but a segment of the mega project, she said, adding the Foxconn project was designed to provide job opportunities for more than 10,000 people as against Motorola's offer to provide 7250 job opportunities.

''In essence, the Foxconn project for which the MoU was signed in her presence, was conceived on a much larger scale utilising the full capability of the Taiwanese giant.

The much touted present project is confined to a segmental company Motorola, whereas Foxconn is a world leader in the field,'' she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa said the present project finalised by the DMK government was only a diminutive version of what was conceived by her and by her government. ''Also, when an MoU had already been signed, it is not clear what prevented the present government from announcing it and going ahead with it, unless it has been suppressed or abandoned due to some sort of animosity against me,'' she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa said the Foxconn project was well conceived and the product profile also met with the requirements of state of the art technology. ''Above all, it was engineered by a world leader in Electronics,'' she said.

She also said that Chief Minister M Karunanidhi owed an explanation to the people of the state as to why the government had gone in only for a segment of the orginal project, whereas an MoU was signed by her government for a mega project.

Mr Karunanidhi was trying to hijack the credit for a project so as Union Communication Minsiter Dayanidhi Maran, who said ''the Tamil Nadu government was so fast that they completed the process in one day after concluding the MoU with Motorola,'' she said.

''The truth is that all the spadework was done by my government at lightning speed with great efficiency, and the MoU was signed in March 2006 itself, but I was prevented for claiming credit for it by the Election Commission of India,'' Ms Jayalalithaa said.

UNI