CM Challenges BJP To Unleash ED, CBI And I-T

Chennai: Challenging the BJP to unleash any of its personal armies like the ED, CBI and Income Tax as it had done against opposition parties in other States to intimidate them and usurp power from them, Chief Minister M K Stalin said that the DMK government was battle-ready to face any such agency.

Answering a question after addressing a meeting ‘Town Hall Chennai,’ organized by CNN-News 18 channel on Monday, Stalin remembered former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi saying ‘I know my height’ when he was asked in 1997 as to why he did not take up the leadership of the UPA government and gave that as his reply.

Stalin was asked if he would lead the INDIA coalition as suggested by a wide range of political leaders like Mani Shankar of the Congress and shiv Sena’s Udhav Thackeray after he made a scathing attack on the BJP and its ally, the AIADMK, for trying to enter Tamil Nadu through unfair means.

To another question on Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Tamil Nadu three times in a month and making a desperate bid to make his alliance win the election in the State, he said he welcomed the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah to the State again and again and wanted Governor R N Ravi to continue in the post as they were only helping the DMK in their campaign.

The people of the State had no faith in the BJP as they were fully aware of the ‘pattern’ followed by them in other States to topple governments and install its own by threatening parties with corruption charges as they had done to the AIADMK leaders and then taking them into their fold as though they had become clean by going through a washing machine.

At least 10 AIADMK leaders faced corruption charges and the DVAC had conducted raids on many of their premises but they were all protected because the party struck and alliance with the BJP and FIR registered against some former Minister had been put on hold due to the Governor and it was in this backdrop they were trying to intimidate the DMK with the threat of raids by the investigative agencies, he said.

How many of the over 8000 cases filed by the ED had been completed and seen their logical end and what was the conviction rate and with whom did those charged with corruption aligned with immediately, he asked, adding that the BJP was playing cheap politics by hounding opponents using the investigative agencies.

They were trying to drive into Tamil Nadu in their jalopy with AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami as BJP branch secretary but the people knew what would happen if they came in as they had seen it in Maharashtra, where they captured power by dividing a State party and then abolished the 5 percent reservation that was given for Muslims and removed 28 lakh names from the list of women getting assistance from the government.

Now in Tamil Nadu the BJP was trying to use the AIADMK as a Trojan horse to enter the State, he said.