DMDK can’t talk on law and order: Jayalalithaa

Chennai: The opposition DMDK members invited sharp barbs from the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for attempting to take on the ruling AIADMK on the law and order issue in the Assembly on Wednesday.

Lashing out at the DMDK, Ms Jayalalithaa said that party had members with many criminal and other cases against them. “You do not have the locus standi to talk about law and order in the state,” the Chief Minister told DMDK whip V. C. Chandrakumar who alleged that the crime graph indicated an upward trend in the state and that the law and order situation deteriorated.

Responding to his allegations during the debate on the demand for grants for the home department, Ms Jayalalithaa, providing exhaustive details, said DMDK founder (Vijayakanth) himself had not conducted himself well in public, beating his own party men and making defamatory statements. Defamation cases were filed against him.

While DMDK’s presidium chairman (Tirunelveli) Mariappan was detained under Goondas Act, seven cases including house breaking were registered against Balan alias Balasubramanian (Tiruppur district deputy secretary), she said.

She listed out the various incidents of crime committed by the DMDK party men in various parts of the state leading to their arrests for their involvement in various offences. To a suggestion that the police personnel might be made to work only for eight hours, she said, police service was not a job with specific work timings.