Karur: Reacting strongly to Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami for calling his gram sabha meetings a farce launched with an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, DMK president M.K. Stalin sarcastically asked if the Chief Minister knew any place beyond Edappadi.
“I have travelled throughout Tamil Nadu .. there is not a single village that I have not visited. Everybody knows me as Stalin, as Thalapathi and son of Kalaignar (late DMK president M. Karunanidhi). I am not boasting. I have worked for the upliftment of the masses,” he said while addressing the gram sabha meeting here on Tuesday. He claimed that his gram sabha meetings were meant to ascertain the problems of the people.
When he was Municipal Administration minister he had allocated '20 lakh for each village panchayat, released funds to the tune of '1 crore pooled from various departments besides implemented the Anna Renaissance Scheme during the DMK rule. “I have ensured more schemes and development to the State. Even the Namakku Naame Thittam was introduced during the DMK rule. I had made history in establishing libraries in all the 12, 617 village panchayats. Are these not development works? Does Palaniswami know any place other than Edappadi (constituency) which he frequents always,” Stalin asked.
Training his guns on Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, the DMK president said the AIADMK leader must have performed the yagam at his office in the Secretariat, to “escape” from a case in the Supreme Court. He claimed that there are chances that the Assembly elections would also be held along with the Lok Sabha polls “because, the case relating to 11 MLAs including Panneerselvam is hanging in the balance in the Supreme Court. That is why he performed a yagam at Fort St George two days ago. He performed it to somehow escape (from the case),” Stalin alleged.
