Chennai: As the death toll in the recent floods in southern Tamil Nadu rose to 35, the State Government on Friday took strong exception to the "language of waging a war" used by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, which "has insulted the people of Tamil Nadu".
Reacting strongly to Sitharaman's press conference in Delhi in which she accused the State Government of failure to handle the floods, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu charged she had insulted the people, who were in the grip of a calamity, by "discourteously declining" to provide funds as requested by Chief Minister M K Stalin.
'Sitharaman responded in war like langiage'
She has responded "in an angry language of waging a war on an enemy country," he said in a late evening statement.
Contending the Centre had declined Tamil Nadu's request for declaring the floods a National calamity and funds of ₹21,000 crore as relief, he said: "This is what Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in an egoistic tone, the language she knows."
Thennarasu claimed accepting a memorandum from Chief Minister M K Stalin recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said "I will fulfill all your requests. Nothing matters more than this."
The Minister said Sitharaman's media briefing is like mocking people when they are suffering the most. She used the media to create a false impression on the Tamil Nadu government by uttering "lies and making false allegations."
