High Court ban against banners, not flagpoles, says CM; opposition calls AIADMK power-drunk

A day after a woman was grievously injured in a road accident owing to a flagpole of the ruling AIADMK, another controversy seems to be brewing in the state with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy saying the Madras High Court ban was only against banners and the Opposition accusing the ruling party of becoming power-drunk.

When asked about the woman rider who suffered fractures in her leg after she got into an accident trying to avoid a flagpole, Palaniswamy, on Tuesday, said that he had not come across information about any such incident but added: "High Court ban was against the banners and not flagpoles."

DMK leader A Saravanan slammed the AIADMK calling it "power drunk" and "insensitive to the sufferings of the people".

"The AIADMK functionaries are power drunk, they don't want to abide by the law of the land. Madras High Court has again and again spoken against the banner culture but the Chief Minister today said that their order was only against banners and not flagpoles. He has admitted that he has no sensitivity towards the suffering of the people," Saravanan told ANI in Chennai.

He said that the AIADMK is refusing to learn lessons from their "past mistakes" and "illegal acts" and is endangering the lives of the common people.

"This has become a norm that every other month something done by the AIADMK cadre is endangering the lives of the people. This is a classic example of how police, which otherwise would have taken action, has not done anything only because AIADMK is involved," the DMK leader said.

Saravanan said if the police were given free rein to control these illegal banners and other ostentatious material, we would not have been praying for the recovery of the victim whose legs got crushed by a lorry.

He said that the AIADMK government does not believe in "good governance" but in publicity and spending money on "these grand ornaments".

A woman, who was riding a scooty was on Monday morning hit by a truck while she was trying to avoid an AIADMK flagpole, which had fallen on the road near Goldwins area at Avinashi road here.

This comes merely two months after a massive controversy had broken out over banners and hoardings in the state after a woman was crushed to death in Chennai owing to an illegal flex banner.