Chennai: As protests continue against the Koodankulam Nuclear power project, Congress' Tamil Nadu unit on Wednesday demanded that the Centre probe the source of funding behind the over two-month long stir.
Newly appointed TNCC president B S Gnanadesikan said the Centre was dutybound to allay the fears of the locals, which it was doing.
"All these years there had been no objection to the project. Suddenly someone starts protesting. People are brought in buses (to participate in the protests. Who is
instigating them? Where is the money coming from? The Centre has to probe it," he said after assuming office as the chief of the state unit at party headquarters Satyamurthy Bhavan.
Gnanadesikan, a Rajya Sabha MP, recalled the remarks of Minister of State in the PMO V Narayansamy on the funding issue.
Narayanasamy has recently said a probe was being held into various aspects of the protest by locals who are demanding the scrapping of the Indo-Russian project.
Taking over after the Congress was handed down one of its worst electoral drubbings in the April 13 Assembly polls as an ally of DMK and its drubbing in last month's local body polls, Gnanadesikan vowed to work for strengthening the faction-ridden state unit taking on-board all stake-holders.
Outgoing TNCC chief K V Thangkabalu had tendered his resignation after the Assembly poll debacle.
Gnanadesikan said he would strive for bringing back 'rule of Kamaraj,' the last Congress Chief Minister in the state who is credited with introducing many reforms in the 1960s.
On the issue of recurring attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen allegedly by Sri Lankan Navy, he said if the charges were true, he would take it up with the Centre.
He noted that India had granted aid for rehabilitation of Tamils after the ethnic strife ended in Sri Lanka.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 20:39