CHENNAI: The war of words between the ruling DMK and the principal opposition party - the AIADMK - continued for the second day on Wednesday, with leaders of both parties trading charges against each other.
At Udhagamandalam, Chief Minister MK Stalin told reporters that during the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he had promised the people that those involved in the Pollachi sexual assault case would be punished irrespective of their status and now that has come true.
Joining the issue, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, in a hard-hitting post on the X handle, said neither the DMK government nor Stalin had any role in this verdict. Still, the latter has claiming credit shamelessly, he said.
Palaniswami also said it was the AIADMK government which referred the case to the CBI. He also said had Stalin dealt with the Pollachi sexual assault case, it would have met the fate of the cases relating to the Anna University sexual assault and that related to the sexual assault of a girl in Anna Nagar.
Further, Palaniswami also said the AIADMK government arrested the accused in the Kodanadu robbery case and filed the chargesheet. But a DMK lawyer had appeared for an accused from Kerala in the case.
Palaniswami also took exception to CM describing as humbug the AIADMK taking credit for the allocation of funds by the union government for MGNREGA and Chennai Metro Second Phase after pressure from the party. The AIADMK leader said, indeed, Stalin called his four years in office governance as real humbug. “Stalin, who mocked our efforts to obtain funds in the past, now refuses to acknowledge when we do succeed,” Palaniswami added.
Meanwhile, Natural Resources Minister S Regupathy, in a statement here, took exception to Palaniswami’s remark that the DMK government of Stalin had no role in the present verdict.
Regupathy said after knowing that persons linked to the AIADMK were involved in the sexual assault case, Palanswami desperately tried to protect the accused by not registering a case against them. “Only after the agitations by the DMK and other opposition parties, the case was transferred to the CBI, having no other option. Now, Palaniswami is enacting a drama, thinking that the people had forgotten what had happened then,” the minister added.
Regupathy also said if Stalin, had not raised this issue, the AIADMK men would have continued with such atrocities against women.
The minister also said Palaniswami’s awkward campaign ‘Yaar Andha Saar’ got defeated, and the Madras High Court hailed the action taken in the Anna University sexual assault case by the state government.