Reject ‘Corrupt,’ ‘Dynastic’ DMK, Congress Combine, Nadda Urges Tamil Nadu People

BJP chief J P Nadda on Friday rooted for Tamil language and culture by touching on issues, including the emotive ‘Jallikattu, the bull taming sport, guarding fishermen and protecting Sri Lankan Tamils’ interests. In his rallies in the run up to the April 6 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, he aligned his campaign line with that of the ruling AIADMK, which has been relentlessly targeting the DMK for its ‘dynastic’ politics, besides corruption.

Nadda picked DMK and its partner Congress over charges of corruption and family politics and urged the electorate to reject them and also targeted them on Jallikattu. Also, he harped on a ‘long leap’ forward for the state in development, which would be propelled by his party-led government at the Centre and ally, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.

Supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the AIADMK government worked for Tamil Nadu’s growth and the goal is that the state should take a ‘long leap’ in development, he said. Asking people to remember the ‘corruption’ of DMK and Congress while in power and the days of ‘policy paralysis’ at the Centre when the latter steered the union government, Nadda alleged that the “DMK-Congress alliance is 2G, 3G, and 4G.” He alleged that 2G denoted corruption of the Maran family (DMK) for two generations, 3G stood for graft of DMK chief M K Stalin’s family for three generations and 4G for four generations of Congress-Gandhi family’s corruption.

“Right from top to bottom, all are involved in scams and corruption,” he alleged. The three letters, DMK meant “Dynasty, Money and Kattapanchayat (a Tamil word used to mean holding of kangaroo courts),” and the Congress is a party that had always ignored local issues and sentiments of people, he alleged.

He targeted DMK for “land grabbing, Goonda Raj and corruption” and appealed to people to vote for the AIADMK-BJP alliance to end such things and for Tamil Nadu to take a big leap in development. The ‘dynastic’ politics of the DMK and Congress parties should be rejected, he said.

“We have to reject dynastic parties and see that real democracy flourishes in Tamil Nadu also.” He said it was during Congress’s stint at the Centre that the then Union Minister Jairam Ramesh came up with a notification against ‘Jallikattu’ in Tamil Nadu. The DMK, a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance, was all along a ‘mute spectator’ when this happened and today these two parties were seeking votes in Tamil Nadu.

Only after Modi took a clear stand favouring the sport and due to his intervention was Jallikattu allowed,he claimed, recalling an ordinance of the Tamil Nadu government in this regard. Days ago, AIADMK top leader and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had hailed the PM as the “real jallikattu hero,” for facilitating permission to hold the sport that was stalled.

Ever since Modi became Prime Minister, incidents of firing on Tamil Nadu fishermen stopped on the international border with Sri Lanka, he claimed. Modi was also the first PM to visit Jaffna in the neighbouring country that witnessed bombardment during the 2009 civil war and he facilitated reconstruction of houses for the Tamil people there, Pannerselvam said.

Also, he deputed External Affairs Minister Jaishankar to Sri Lanka to ensure that the rights of Tamil minorities are protected, he said. In sync with BJP’s ‘Vel’ (a spear like weapon of Lord Muruga) campaign to condemn fringe elements that denigrated ‘Kanda Sasthi Kavacham,’ Nadda said he prayed to Lord Muruga and wished people on the coming ‘Panguni Uthiram’ festival.

Kavacham is a collection of hymns in praise of Lord Muruga. Raking up the ‘Karuppar Kootam’ episode in which Kavacham was berated last year, he said DMK chief Stalin had not condemned it then and alleged the Dravidian party president spoke against the ‘Vel.’ It was, however, the agitations of his party,led by state unit chief L Murugan that ensured that the ‘Vel’ was respected and even prompted Stalin, an atheist, to pose with it,he said.

This showed that the BJP “stood for the culture of Tamil Nadu.” He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted Tamil poet Kaniyan Poonkundranar in the United Nations and Nadda praised Tamil as the world’s oldest language. Seeking to blunt the Tamil ‘ignored’ and Hindi ‘imposed’ refrain of DMK, he said as per the Centre’s new National Education Policy, Tamil would be the medium of instruction till class eight in the state.

Citing allocations for Tamil Nadu from the Centre like Rs seven lakh crore for the defence corridor, he said such initiatives would bring fresh jobs to youngsters. Nadda also underscored several measures like setting up of 11 new medical colleges and AIIMS at Madurai in Tamil Nadu, besides allocations for the Chennai Metro Rail.

Be it the Centre’s Garib Kalyan package or Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, these have been implemented in ‘letter and spirit’ by the AIADMK government, which also evinced a keen interest in vaccinating the people against COVID-19, he said. He urged the people to support the AIADMK-BJP alliance to take forward the development work initiated by Modi.