Opposition leader and DMK president M.K. Stalin on Monday took issue with State Law Minister D. Jayakumar, who described the DMK as a “waning moon”, saying that the party’s growth in the Assembly, Parliament and rural local body polls had proved the Minister wrong.
“Today, we have 24 MPs in the Lok Sabha from nothing (five years ago). Our strength in the Assembly has increased from 89 to 100. In the previous local body elections we won 1,007 union councillor posts and now the number has gone up to 2,100. We had just 30 district panchayat councillors in 2011 and now we have increased the tally to 243. I leave it to your conclusion whether it is a waning moon or waxing moon,” he told reporters after staging a walkout from the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Stalin said the DMK had boycotted the Governor’s address to highlight various issues including the debt of the government which had become a whopping ₹4 lakh crore, unemployment and failure of the Governor to take action on the Assembly resolution seeking the release of seven persons convicted for life in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
He said by supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) the AIADMK government had betrayed the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Muslims. Asked about the claim of the State Election Commissioner R. Palaniswamy that elections to the rural local bodies were held in a fair manner, he quipped, “He must have learnt the rules of election in the school of Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami.”
Mr. Stalin also condemned the attack on the students at Jawaharlal Nehru University and had asked party MP Tiruchi N. Siva to meet the affected students.
