tamil nadu: Tamil Nadu democratised religion over 100 years ago…tough for radicalism: FM Palanivel Thiagarajan
He also said the DMK government, under chief minister MK Stalin, would seek to attract investment in the state from around the world and also work to accommodate employers who may want to shift their businesses from Karnataka to TN owing to growing communal tensions in Karnataka.
Thiagarajan said in the recent GST Council meeting, he had flagged concerns about the “flawed implementation of the goods and services tax and increasing control” of the Centre over institutions that he said would lead to “dire consequences for the country”.
Tamil Nadu is keeping a watch on the happenings in Karnataka as every threat has to be taken seriously, said the finance minister. “There is a massive interest (from IT companies wanting to diversify to Tamil Nadu), and we are already in the race. There are people actively raising this with us and our government is working on it,” he said.
He said Tamil Nadu has seen a 53 per cent increase in investment and that to attract financial investors and corporates, the state government will hold events in different countries within the next six months. “If we invest one rupee in capital investment, we want to match that with external investment,” he said.
Stalin, who was in Delhi last week to meet PM Modi and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently, visited Dubai to meet business heads and, according to a government statement, MoUs worth ₹6,100 crore investments were signed that could lead to 14,000 jobs in Tamil Nadu.
Though the BJP has been aggressively trying to increase its penetration in TN, Thiagarajan, who comes from a family closely linked with Dravidian politics for over four generations, said the state poses the biggest challenge to the expansion of Hindutva. “If Tamil Nadu turns Hindutva, that will be the final nail for our secular democracy and so I don’t think it will ever happen. Tamil Nadu is the most devout state in the country and it is not because of Hindutva but because we democratised religion long ago.”
