CHENNAI: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday paid tributes to former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on her birth anniversary by addressing the people in RK Nagar constituency, from where she had won in the last Assembly elections.
But Palaniswami’s choice of this venue on the day is interesting as this constituency now belongs to AMMK’s TTV Dhinakaran, who won in the by-elections, held in 2017 after Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016. Addressing the gathering, Palaniswami launched a scathing attack on DMK president MK Stalin for ‘unleashing a malicious propaganda against the AIADMK government’.
He said, “Out of desperation for power, Stalin has been issuing statements on a daily basis with false information.” Stating that Stalin has been alleging that the government did nothing for the people, the Chief Minister said: “Perhaps, he is unaware of what is happening.”
Listing the numerous welfare measures and developmental schemes being implemented by the AIADMK government, Palaniswami said multi-storey concrete houses would be provided to all families belonging to the poor and downtrodden sections of the society, living in urban areas. He also explained how the new integrated grievance redressal mechanism would be beneficial to the people in resolving their problems.
He said that Stalin and his party leaders would forget people once the elections were over, and that they were meeting them only because the polls were around the corner. Giving a detailed account on how his government has efficiently handled the Covid crisis, Palaniswami said,
“Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the way in which the infection was contained in Tamil Nadu and urged other States to emulate the Tamil Nadu model.” Referring to the reports about sudden spike in Covid cases in various States, the Chief Minister concluded his speech by appealing to the public to wear face masks mandatorily and to maintain physical distance in public places to avoid spread of the infection.