Launching a scathing attack on AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, at back-to-back election meetings in Madurai, Coimbatore and Chennai on Saturday, said Tamil Nadu does not need the rule of a Chief Minister “who stays behind four walls, crushes dissent and believes that she has the answer for every problem.”
In Madurai, sharing the dais with M. K. Stalin, treasurer of the DMK, the Congress’ senior ally, Mr Gandhi emphasised that both of them had understood that “directionally, in thinking, we are similar.”
He regretted that Tamil Nadu, which was India’s most successful State, had become “backward in many, many areas” in the last five years. It was the State which had leaders like Periyar, Kamaraj, MGR and M. Karunanidhi, who flowed into the sea of people like a river, listened to them and understood them. Above all, they were humble. “I am confident that Mr. Stalin also has these qualities,” he said. Mr Gandhi stuck to the same theme at all three venues and alleged that both Ms Jayalalithaa and BJP leader-cum-Prime Minister Narendra Modi were “sitting indoors assuming to have solutions for the problems of everyone.”
The Congress leader claimed that the Chief Minister was “absolutely convinced” that she need not mingle with people and nobody in the State had anything to tell her.
Mr Gandhi narrated the story of Sathya, a ninth standard girl from Theni, who lost her father and his assets to liquor. Her mother also died subsequently.
“Ironically, this is the truth in Tamil Nadu,” Mr. Rahul said and pointed out that the number of liquor shops had gone up from 1,800 to 6,800 in the last five years.
“The Chief Minister gave Rs 5,000 worth freebies like mixer and grinder that did not work and took away Rs 60,000 from each family through liquor shops,” he charged.
