Just as the Congress and the BJP, the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu has been caught in the web of crony capitalism, CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy said on Monday.
Addressing a press conference here, in the midst of his electioneering for the party candidate, K. Balasubramanian, he said it was at the insistence of the corporates that the AIADMK had left the Left parties out of its alliance. The corporates might have thought that the growth of the Left parties would create problems for them.
Earlier, the AIADMK hobnobbed with the Communist parties; but after the election schedule was announced, it unilaterally announced its candidates for all Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Though initially the leaders and cadre of the Left parties were neither psychologically nor physically prepared for such a sudden development, they recouped themselves within no time, and now, with renewed vigour, they were campaigning in the 18 Lok Sabha seats where the CPI and the CPI(M) had fielded candidates. Mr. Reddy hoped that a considerable number of them would get elected.
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He said that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had started criticising the BJP belatedly, but it was not based on any political or ideological conviction. He accused her of failing to resolve energy and water problems.
Criticising the DMK, Mr. Reddy said that much against the furore, it fielded the former Union Ministers, A. Raja and Dayanidhi Maran, who were facing corruption cases. But DMK leader M. Karunanidhi had been asking the Congress to apologise to him (for having jailed Mr. Raja and Kanimozhi).
“In fact, the Congress should apologise to the nation, and not to Mr. Karunanidhi, for having given Cabinet berths to Mr. Raja and Mr. Dayanidhi Maran.”
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