Chennai, May 21 (IANS): A delegation of Tamil Nadu BJP leaders led by the party's state president K. Annamalai on Sunday met state Governor R. N. Ravi and gave a representation to him to remove the state Prohibition and Excise minister, Senthil Balaji from the cabinet.

Annamalai claimed that since May 2021, when the Stalin government assumed office, there has been a regular increase in drug and alcohol related cases.

Annamalai said that the state government in a recent policy note had claimed that there were no hooch tragedies in the state since the past 14 years. However, the recent deaths of 22 people in the twin hooch tragedies at Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts were a testament to the government's failure to prevent the sale of illicit liquor in the state.

The BJP leader claimed that the man arrested in Chengalpattu for selling spurious liquor was the brother of DMK leader, Maravoor Raja. He said that this DMK leader always appeared along side DMK minority affairs minister, Gingee Mastan.

The BJP state president said that the DMK government has "misplaced" priorities and cannot continue leveraging compensation as a methodology to cover its failures.

He also demanded removal of state Minority Affairs Minister Gingee Mastan for failing to discharge his duties.

Annamalai also alleged that Balaji had been involved in a major job-for-cash scam and that the Tamil Nadu police were investigating the case against him.

The BJP leader said that he fear that the minister would misuse his official position to dilute the course of the investigation.