Chennai, May 30( BPNS)

Tamil Nadu finance minister PTR Thiagarajan has said that as he has not done any harm to the people of Goa he does not need to apologise also.

In a statement addressed to the people of Goa on Sunday, the Tamil Nadu finance minister said, “ I have no need to apologise to the people of Goa, for I have done you no harm. I have strongly advocated for your state government’s rights. I do not require or expect any thanks for that, as my position was dictated by my principles of strengthening State’s rights and federalism with enhanced devolution”.

This was in response to the demand made by the Goa Transport minister Mauvin Godinho who had claimed that Thiagarajan had in the recent virtual GST meeting asked him to “Shut Up” after he cast his “Vote’.

The Goan minister in his allegation said that the Tamil Nadu finance minister’s stand was that ”Since he comes from a bigger state, he should have a bigger vote.”

Thiagarajan , in his statement said that he was clear in his position that “One state –One Vote” , mode of the GST council was fundamentally unfair, and that he always believed in a truly federal governance model.

The Tamil Nadu Finance minister also said that there was no agenda item in the GST council regarding Goa’s intention to levy any cess. Thiagarajan said,” I simply could not have voted on an agenda item that did not exist, let alone vote against it.”

Thiagarajan also came out against the Goan transport minister and mockingly said, “I charge the Chief Minister of Goa with perpetrating a misdemeanor on Goa’s citizens and the GST council by nominating Godinho to represent your beautiful state.”

The Tamil Nadu finance minister in the statement said that the Goa finance minister was highly repetitive, largely vacuous,hectoring and mostly redundant to other’s inputs , supercilious and with inputs from the finance minister of Uttar Pradesh.