DMK president M.K. Stalin on Sunday termed the AIADMK government a “slave” of the BJP government at the Centre. He also accused the Centre of having ignored the State’s interests during the last four years.
Referring to Mr. Palaniswami’s assertion at an election meeting a few ago that the AIADMK was not subservient to anyone, Mr. Stalin said the Chief Minister had done nothing to protect the State’s interests during his tenure so far. The Centre, too, had betrayed Tamil Nadu’s interests. At a time when the Assembly election was just a month away, Mr. Palaniswami’s assertion was a drama to hoodwink the people, he said.
At a public outreach programme at Thirukadaiyur near Poompuhar, Mr. Stalin questioned why not a brick had been moved four years after the announcement was made on the establishment of an AIIMS in Madurai. The Centre had not come to the State’s rescue when it was badly affected by two cyclones.
It had not released the sum sought by the State to carry out relief and rehabilitation measures, he said.
Commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Chennai, Mr. Stalin sought to know whether the Chief Minister had the conviction to seek an explanation for the Centre’s “inaction” on the Bills passed by the Assembly against NEET, non-release of funds to the State and Karnataka’s decision to build a dam across the Cauvery at Mekedatu.
Under the scanner
Mr. Palaniswami could not raise questions as “scandalous misdeeds” by him and his Ministers were under the scanner of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, he said.
The DMK president said Mr. Palaniswami, who came to power owing to the fallout of O. Panneerselvam’s ‘dharma yutham’ and the incarceration of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s aide V.K. Sasikala, had wasted an opportunity to serve the State.
The Chief Minister had neither the courage and the talent nor the willingness to serve the people well.
Instead, Mr. Palaniswami was trying to enact a drama at the end of his regime by announcing a slew of schemes. The “corrupt regime” would be voted out, Mr. Stalin said.
The DMK leader said an intense race for supremacy between Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam had warranted the intervention of Mr. Modi to broker peace. If not for the objection raised by former PWD Minister Durai Murugan to the inauguration of the Cauvery-Gundar project on the ground that it had already been launched during the DMK regime, the Chief Minister would have taken the Prime Minister for a ride, Mr. Stalin said.
