PT to highlight Centre's miserable performance

Madurai, June 7 (UNI) Charging the Congress-led UPA government with having failed on all fronts, Dalit leader and Puthiya Thamizhagam (PT) founder-president K Krishnasamy today said the party would expose the Centre's miserable performance in the campaign for the Assembly bypoll from Madurai West constituency.

Announcing the PT's candidate, V Mahalingam alias Chitrarasu, for the by-poll here, he told newspersons that they would highlight the government's continued negligence of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

While the three-year-old Manmohan Singh government was accused of not fulfilling the pre-election promises, the Karunanidhi government, which had completed one year in office was criticised for turning a blind eye to the industrial development of the southern districts.

The PT was fielding its nominee as a constituent of the People's Alliance (PA) formed during the last Lok Sabha elections with the BSP and a few other minor political outfits, he said.

On Third Front at the national level, the PT leader said it could get a concrete shape only at the time of the next Lok Sabha polls.

The party had been striving all along for a third alternative in the state since 1999, he said.

Dismissing by-elections as a meaningless exercise providing room for misuse of official machinery and corruption, the Dalit leader called for a consensus to amend the statutes so that the party representing the particular constituency be allowed to retain it with its own nominee.

Meanwhile, D Siva Muthukumar (37), the nominee of Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), filed his nominations papers for the by-poll today.

BJP's Sasiraman alias Seetharaman, party's District Secretary since 2006 and the Congress' K S K Rajendran were expected to file their papers tomorrow, the last day for filing nomination papers.

UNI