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Minority votes in the Lok Sabha elections should come to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and opposition INDIA bloc parties to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party from dividing people on religious lines, said Dravidian leaders who on Sunday fanned out across Tamil Nadu to address public meetings, setting the tone for the election season.
The campaign series titled “Urimaigalai Meetka Stalinin Kural (Stalin’s voice to retrieve rights)” is being held in 37 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, except the three in Chennai, and the lone seat in Puducherry.
Lok Sabha MP K Kanimozhi targeted the BJP led Union government on issues of language and centralisation. Tamil Nadu is a leading state under her half brother and chief minister M K Stalin in the sectors such as health, education, she said. “We have achieved this despite not receiving our due funds from the Centre,” Kanimozhi said in Virudhunagar district.
Municipal administration minister K N Nehru, speaking in Erode district, said that the ceiling on borrowing limits set by the Centre tied the hands of the state from not being able to carry on developmental work. “Only we know how much the Union government threatens ministers,” Nehru said. “A change can only be brought by the INDIA bloc and we will be a part of it and that will bring immense benefits to Tamil Nadu.”
Nehru’s remarks that opposition leaders were being threatened through federal agencies were earlier made by minister for public works E V Velu when he was raided by the income-tax department in November. On Sunday he said that although Prime Minister Narendra Modi hails Tamil language and quotes Thirukural (couplets by Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar), he is only paying lip service because he said that the Centre has allocated only ₹29 crore for development in Tamil.
If people were to live harmoniously, the BJP has to lose, minister for Hindu religious and charitable endowments Sekar Babu said in Chennai. “I am saying openly that BJP should not come to power again. They are making people villains to each other based on religion, language and looking to win votes through that,” Babu said. “So the votes of Muslim people should come to the DMK-INDIA bloc without spilling anywhere else.”
Stalin, who is also the DMK president, has not been part of the three-day campaign, but a day ago had said his government has ensured peaceful coexistence for all sections in the society, unlike the BJP.
On Saturday, BJP’s Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai released another old audio tape as part of the “DMK-files part 3,” accusing the Dravidian party of corruption. The recording was a conversation from 2006 to 2011 during the United Progressive Alliance regime between former Union telecom minister A Raja and then state intelligence head Jaffer Sait during the 2G telecom scam case.
Divya Chandrababu is an award-winning political and human rights journalist based in Chennai, India. Divya is presently Assistant Editor of the Hindustan Times where she covers Tamil Nadu & Puducherry. She started her career as a broadcast journalist at NDTV-Hindu where she anchored and wrote prime time news bulletins. Later, she covered politics, development, mental health, child and disability rights for The Times of India. Divya has been a journalism fellow for several programs including the Asia Journalism Fellowship at Singapore and the KAS Media Asia- The Caravan for narrative journalism. Divya has a master’s in politics and international studies from the University of Warwick, UK. As an independent journalist Divya has written for Indian and foreign publications on domestic and international affairs.
DMK leaders make pitch for INDIA bloc | Latest News India – Hindustan Times
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