A day after DMK leader M.K. Stalin claimed that all the Ministers in the current AIADMK government will be jailed once the opposition party came to power, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami hit back on Tuesday, saying Mr. Stalin will be in jail even before his party came to power.
Addressing mediapersons at Madurai airport, Mr. Palaniswami said, “You need to see whether he remains outside (or inside the jail, if and when the DMK comes to power).”
The CM said that cases against the DMK leader were pending in the courts. Now that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was no more, the DMK was trying to threaten the government, he said. “Since there are many corruption cases against former DMK Ministers pending before the courts, the party is trying all these [tactics] with the aim of burying these cases. They expected the AIADMK to break and the government to fall. Both did not happen. They cannot do anything at all,” he said.
Stating that a special court had been set up to try cases pending against MLAs and MPs in accordance with a Supreme Court order, the CM noted that Mr. Stalin was the first person to appear before the court. The CM claimed that the DMK had filed a case against him based on a false complaint, and that the Supreme Court’s stay order on a CBI probe into the allegations against him had proved that he was innocent.
Homage to Thevar
Earlier in the day, the CM, his deputy O. Panneerselvam, their Cabinet colleagues and leaders of various political parties paid tribute to freedom fighter Muthuramalinga Thevar on the occasion of his 111th birth anniversary and 56th ‘Guru puja’ (death anniversary) at his native village in Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district.
The Chief Minister, accompanied by Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao and Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena, paid homage by placing a wreath at the Thevar memorial and paying floral tributes to the late leader.
DMK president M.K. Stalin, Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon. Radhakrishnan, MDMK leader Vaiko, TNCC president Su. Thirunavukkarasar, AMMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, TMC leader G.K. Vasan, All India Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam leader N. Sethuraman and Mukkulathor Pulipadai leader S. Karunas were among the politicians who paid homage to the late leader.
Thousands of people from Ramanathapuram and neighbouring districts thronged the memorial since the break of dawn to pay their respects to the late leader.
The district police made elaborate security arrangements, deploying about 8,000 personnel and posting additional pickets along banned routes and in over 60 ‘sensitive’ villages.
