Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today suspended a stadium officer here for allowing a Sri Lankan football team to play a friendly tie, terming it as an insult to Tamils and directed that the team be sent back home.
“The (Nehru) Stadium Officer has no authority to allow matches there and only the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu is authorised to do so. By using an authority that did not exist, the official had demeaned the sentiments of Tamil people,” she said.
Jayalalithaa directed Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi to place the Nehru Stadium Official under suspension and initiate department—level proceedings against him.
“I have also instructed that no competitions must be held for the Sri Lankan team besides directing that they be sent back,” she said in a statement here.
The team from Royal College, Colombo, had played a match against Chennai Customs Department in the friendly tie organised by a former city league football player on Friday.
Jayalalithaa’s action comes against the backdrop of her vociferous opposition to India training Sri Lankan military personnel not only in Tamil Nadu but also anywhere else in the country, saying the Lankan forces had committed war crimes against Tamils in the island nation.
The AIADMK chief also slammed the Centre for allowing the Sri Lankan football team play matches in Tamil Nadu.
Keywords: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, Sri Lankan football team, Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi, Royal College, Colombo,
Comments:
The Dravidian parties in Tamilnadu vie with one another in grabbing any and every opportunity to make it known that they are more interested in the advancement of the Sri Lankan Tamils' cause than the SL Tamils themselves. How else to describe the Tamilnadu CM's stand on the SL's foot ball match in Chennai? Too much of anything will be counter productive.One wonders at the naivety of these politicians appearing to believe that Sri Lankan issue weighs with the TN electorate in electing or rejecting them in the elections.In the elections only bad governance, corruption,price rise etc are the issues at the back of the minds of the TN electorate though they are not indifferent to the plights of SL Tamils.Unfortunately there is no political party in Tamilnadu other than Congress not playing the SL sentiment card but the Congress is no where near capturing power in TN for a long long time to come.
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