K Annamalai Threatens To Go on Fast-Unto-Death if TN Govt Acquires Agricultural Land in Annur

While leading a protest in Annur, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai declared that he would not allow the state government to acquire "even a handful of soil" from the farmers in response to the proposal to purchase enormous expanses of property, including agricultural areas in the region.

Further, he threatened to go on a fast-until-death if the government bought agricultural land to build an industrial zone in Annur.

Various farmers and farmer groups from several villages of Annur and Mettupalayam taluks have been protesting for past some days against the state government, claiming that the acquisition will include taking over of acres of fertile land.

The state Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Sipcot) has reportedly received an order from the state government to purchase 3,800 acres of land for the construction of an industrial complex.

Criticising the government on Wednesday, Annamalai claimed that instead of building the industrial estate by annexing acres of farmland, there are various desert areas in a number of districts of Tamil Nadu.

Coimbatore contains a number of industrial clusters that were built and developed by the locals without assistance from the government. However, the state administration claims that by destroying agriculture, they will improve Coimbatore and push it to the next level, he said while addressing the farmers at the protest site in Annur.

The Saffron party has been claiming that when the DMK was in power twenty years ago, the state government purchased hundreds of acres with the intention of constructing an industrial zone in Nanguneri, but no such facility was established in the region. It has been of the view that the projected industrial estate would only benefit DMK politicians and businesses, not farmers or the residents of Annur.

Annamalai stated during the protest that even now, the DMK administration is failing to draw any business investments in the state. He cited the example of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and New Delhi, who attracted more investment in the year 2021 as compared to Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the northern Tamil Nadu has been put on high alert by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday morning as Mandous became a cyclonic storm as the deep depression in the southwest and adjacent southeast Bay of Bengal strengthened.

"Deep Depression over Southwest and adjoining Southeast Bay of Bengal intensified into a Cyclonic Storm "Mandous" pronounced as "Man-Dous" (Cyclone Alert for north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh coasts): Yellow Message," the IMD said in a tweet.