‘Verdict in disqualification case will bring down govt.’

Stalin says DMK not in favour of toppling the Edappadi regime

Talking tough: DMK leader M.K. Stalin addressing the party’s zonal conference in Erode on Sunday. M. Govarthan

ERODE

The judicial outcome of the two cases relating to disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs will certainly bring down the Edappadi K. Palaniswami government in less than a month and lead to the imposition of President’s rule in Tamil Nadu, DMK working president M.K. Stalin said at the party’s zonal conference in Erode on Sunday evening.

Stating that everywhere he went people were asking why the DMK had not toppled the AIADMK government or saying that had his father M. Karunanidhi been active he would have done so by this time, Mr. Stalin said the DMK did not want to capture power through the backdoor. In fact, Mr. Karunanidhi, being a democrat, was not in favour of toppling any government.

Mr. Stalin said if he had wished, the government could have been toppled in a minute. For argument sake he said all that was needed was to buy the MLAs. But had he done so, such a [DMK] government would have to give “protection money” to the MLAs – something he accused the Palaniswami government of doing.

He added that the time for the DMK to return to power was nearing. “By this month end, the judgment in the disqualification case – filed by DMK’s Sakkarapani and AMMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran – would be out. I can say with certainty that the government will fall and President’s rule would be imposed. Elections would be held after six months and the DMK will win, and after that, for 30 years, none can touch the DMK,” Mr Stalin said.

Accusing the government of meekly surrendering itself to the diktats of the BJP led Union government, Mr. Stalin said neither the CM nor the Deputy CM were ready to pass a hard hitting resolution in the Assembly to exert pressure on the Centre for forming the Cauvery Management Board.

‘State being deceived’

The idea of a Cauvery Monitoring Committee mooted by the Centre instead of a Cauvery Management Board was only an attempt to dilute the spirit of the SC order and to further deceive Tamil Nadu.

Now knowing fully well that the Centre was running the State Government, the DMK has planned a jail bharo agitation, he added.