People of TN won’t accept coalition govt, says Palaniswami
COIMBATORE/CHENNAI: Reaffirming the AIADMK’s political position that steered the party’s campaign launch a day earlier, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Monday that the people of Tamil Nadu would not accept a coalition government in the State.
Responding to queries from reporters in Coimbatore, Palaniswami said that an alliance would be formed under the AIADMK umbrella, and that its manifesto for the 2021 polls would be released soon.On why the BJP was yet to announce a chief ministerial candidate, he said that the poll dates were yet to be announced and that could be the probable reason.“The AIADMK has announced its CM candidate as we have already commenced our election campaign,” he added.
‘Ties still strong’
Earlier in the day, BJP State president L Murugan clarified that the party’s alliance with the AIADMK would remain strong. He, however, evaded questions on the ruling party’s “no power share” stand after the elections. He simply stated: “You will get answers to such queries within a few days.”
Murugan was addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Chennai after meeting the Chief Minister at the Secretariat. The meeting assumes significance as it took place a day after the AIADMK kick-started its election campaign with a clear message to the saffron party that it would not be in any power sharing arrangement.
However, Murugan said that his meeting with the Chief Minister was for a different reason — “to hand over documents of a signature campaign that carried around 50 lakh signatures in support of the National Education Policy 2020”.
The State unit of the BJP had conducted the campaign in support of the Centre’s new educational policy.
The Federation for National Education Policy, comprising retired vice-chancellors and educationists, numbering around two lakhs, had signed in this campaign.
“We have been telling the people on how the DMK had adopted the duplicity as far as NEP was concerned. In most schools run by the DMK functionaries, three to five languages are taught. But, for their political mileage, they back a two-language policy,” Murugan said. He added that the DMK’s objective was to prevent students belonging to poor economic backgrounds and SC/ST community from studying an additional language. Murugan also released a list of 45 schools, run by DMK functionaries, where multiple languages were being taught.
He also alleged that the DMK was taking away lands that belonged to people from the Scheduled Caste. “Why are you not putting the original land document of the Murasoli office in Chennai, in public domain? Why are you taking away the lands of Scheduled Caste people?”