Chennai: Daring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to enumerate his special projects for Tamil Nadu during his next visit to the State, Chief Minister M K Stalin, referring to the media advertisements proclaiming a ‘Modi’s Guarantee,’ asked him about the fate of the guarantees given earlier like the one on depositing Rs 15 lakh in everyone’s bank account and generating two crore jobs a year.
Speaking at a government function organized in Pollachi for the launch of welfare schemes and distribution of assistance totally worth Rs 1,273.51 crore for the districts of Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Erode and Nilgiris on Wednesday, Stalin also wanted the Prime Minister to list out the schemes of the Union Government that the DMK government had stalled, as alleged by him.
Turning the event into a platform for canvassing votes for the DMK-led alliance and running down both the AIADMK and BJP, he challenged the AIADMK to list out its achievements during its 10 year regime and said the time had come for the people to teach a lesson to all those who denigrated ‘our land, language, culture, history and glory.’
The AIADMK and BJP, who were carrying on with an ‘illicit relationship’ even while staging an overt drama of having parted ways, were on one side of the electoral battle field with the DMK, its allies and the people of the State, driven by a collective objective of bringing prosperity to the State and protecting the rights of the Tamil people, on the opposite side, he said.
He recalled the Pollachi sex scam that broke out during the AIADMK regime and said that Edappadi K Palaniswami as Chief Minister had asked for evidence on the case when journalists asked him about it. Even witnesses were intimidated then and only after the DMK took over did the investigations by the CBI lead to the filing of the charge sheet in court, he said, adding that the case would reach its logical end.
By reminding people of other incidents like the police firing on protestors in Thoothukudi when they took out a rally against the opening of the Sterlite Copper Smelter plant, the series of criminal incidents that unfolded at the Kodanad Estate, the suppression of the Jallikattu protest and the harassment meted out to a young woman superintendent of police by a senior police officer, Stalin was seeking votes in favour of the DMK alliance.
Blaming the AIADMK for ruining the State and the BJP for neglecting it, Stalin wanted the people to support the DMK alliance to defeat the fascist forces and listed out the plethora of welfare schemes launched by the DMK government in the past three years. If so much could be done with a hostile Union Government, the State’s achievements could be 10 times more if there was a friendly regime at Delhi, he said, urging the people to usher in the change.
He asked the people of the State to question the Prime Minister on what he claimed to be the lies uttered by him and the rumours circulated through ‘WhatsApp,’ particularly the claim that the State government scuttled the implementation of the Union Government’s schemes. What projects did he bring to the State and which of them were scuttled, he asked.
Stalin said that he could give one example of a Union Government project announced in 2014 that no one in the State disapproved of, neither the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa nor any of her successors from the AIADMK, and that was the starting of the AIIMS in Madurai. Even the DMK did not oppose it, he said, referring to the project remaining a non-starter.
At the event, the Chief Minister announced a plethora of schemes for the four districts – 13 for Coimbatore, nine for Erode, five for Tiruppur and four for Nilgiris – and said that the huge turnout at the meeting had given him the hope of the people still standing by him. He was given a warm reception as he landed at Coimbatore and a rousing welcome en route to Pollachi.
