Wednesday, January 18 2006 15:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today (Jan 18, 2006) alleged that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre was hatching a conspiracy to 'fix' her in Income Tax cases, to reduce her increasing popularity.

Intervening during a debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address to the state assembly, she said the UPA government, unable to digest her growing popularity due to the 'good work' done by her in tsunami and flood relief work, was attempting to hatch a conspiracy to fix her in I T cases. "Union minister of state for finance S S Palanimanikam has been repeatedly pressurizing Income tax officials to raid my house. They have been resisting it on the plea that there was no precedence of raiding the residences of Chief Ministers", she said.

The officials who had refused to raid her house, had been subjected to frequent transfers, she alleged.

The Chief Minister said that the Income Tax department was presently conducting several raids in the city, including those close to personal physician and auditor. But despite pressures from Palanimanikam, IT officials refused to raid her house today.

"Today they did not come. I do not know what will happen tomorrow. They had plans to keep something in my house and say they have seized it from there. The conspiracy is the subject in all Democratic Progressive Front leaders meeting', she said.

When the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led opposition sought to explain their stand on her remarks, the Speaker, K Kalimuthu did not permit them, leading to a walkout by DMK, Congress, PMK and Communist Party of India (CPI) MLAs. The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) legislators also staged a walkout on the plea that their MLA was not given enough time to speak.