CHENNAI: “It is not TVK that needs to save women; rather, women need to be saved from TVK,” DMK president and former chief minister M K Stalin said on Friday, a day ahead of the statewide protest by the party’s women’s wing.
In a video message, Stalin accused Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay of failing to deliver on the very promises on law and order and women’s safety that the latter had repeatedly made during the election campaign.
He asked, “The person who kept shouting that law and order had deteriorated, women and children were unsafe, and crimes were taking place due to drugs what is the situation under his government today?” he asked, adding that criminals are “celebrating as though this is their government”.
Stalin questioned Vijay’s handling of the police department, and alleged that TVK functionaries themselves were involved in a significant number of criminal incidents and said the CM should first rein in his party members. “If he [Vijay] just controls the people within his own party, crimes will drop drastically,” he said.
Stalin also raised the issue of a TVK functionary, who was reportedly arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in connection with an alleged international drug manufacturing and smuggling network.
Further, he slammed the TVK government over the rise in prices of essential commodities and accused it of misleading people over the availability of quality rice and subsidised small onions at ration shops.