MADURAI: Questioning the claims that former chief minister M K Stalin was detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during the Emergency, Minister for Law CTR Nirmal Kumar on Saturday said no detention order had so far been produced to substantiate it.
Addressing media persons in Madurai, Kumar said, “For anyone arrested under MISA, a detention order should be available. But no such order has been produced in Stalin’s case.”
Repeatedly projecting Stalin as an Emergency-era “sacrifice” would not help the DMK, he remarked, insisting that the Opposition produce documentary evidence instead of relying on books or newspaper reports. Records pertaining to the period could have been removed after the DMK came to power, but said such claims, too, needed to be substantiated, he added.
On the upcoming Assembly bypolls, the minister alleged that the DMK and the AIADMK would rely on money power, adding that the parties had spent hundreds of crores of rupees in earlier elections. Voters are aware of the practice and would respond appropriately on election day, he said.