TIRUVARUR: Kick-starting his party’s election campaign in Tiruvarur, DMK president MK Stalin on Wednesday launched a broadside against the Union government and the Edappadi K Palaniswami-led State government and said the bypolls to 18 assembly seats would usher in regime change.
Stalin said if the DMK came to power, crop loans of all farmers would be waived and that the party manifesto would be tweaked to this effect. Farmers associations had sought a blanket loan waiver after the manifesto promising the relief only to small and marginal farmers was released, he added.
“One may be justified to ask how the elections to 18 assembly segments would lead to regime change,” Stalin said. The fate of the 11 MLAs who, along with Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, had voted against the Edappadi government would be decided by the Supreme Court any time, and elections to the remaining three segments may be announced as courts have intervened, he explained.
Referring to the Pollachi sexual abuse case, the DMK leader alleged that the AIADMK had been shielding the culprits.
Coming down heavily on the BJP, Stalin said that the saffron party, despite talking about fighting corruption, had allied with a party whose ministers were facing corruption allegations. “The CBI investigation against the chief minister may have been stayed for now, but the court had ordered the inquiry based on prima facie evidence,” he said.