CHENNAI: The ruling DMK’S mouthpiece Murasoli on Monday slammed the BJP for having an alliance with AIADMK, which was “instrumental in toppling the BJP-led union government in 1999”.
The DMK statement comes nearly four days after PM Modi remarked in Rajya Sabha that the governments of M Karunanidhi and MG Ramachandran were brought down by the Congress government. He had also asked the DMK, “Are you still having an alliance with Congress which dissolved the governments?.”
In reply to the question Modi, Murasoli’s editorial said, “While the DMK’s complaints are administrative in nature, the PM’s question was political. It reminded that the AB Vajpayee government, in which AIADMK was a partner, fell after former CM J Jayalalithaa withdrew her party’s support. The Vajpayee government lost its majority by just one vote on April 17, 1999,” the article said.
The editorial further recalled that former CM J Jayalalithaa campaigned in 2014 when Narendra Modi faced the parliamentary election as the PM candidate. It criticised the saffron party for once pledging to make TN free of Dravidian parties, but now relying on the support of AIADMK, a major Dravidian party.
Commenting on the DMK’s editorial, veteran journalist T Koodalarasan told TNIE, “Politics is purely a number game and the decision of present. Hence, there is no locus standi for anyone to charge any political party. Murasoli’s editorial gave a fitting reply to the new entrants in politics, who hailed Modi’s statement over the Congress alliance with DMK for the last few days by recalling the event held two decades ago.”