EPS gives back to Tamil Nadu CM Stalin's angry outbursts

 Chennai: Reacting to the angry outbursts of Chief Minister M K Stalin over the action against his Ministerial colleague V Senthil Balaji by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that were made public through the release of a video on Thursday, opposition party leaders Edappadi K Palaniswami and K Annamalai wanted to know why he was so agitated and indignant now when he had been witness to so many similar episodes in the past.

Resorting to the same mode of communication that the Chief Minister used, Palaniswami released his own video in which he sought to retort to every allegation made by Stalin, besides wondering if he was afraid of Senthil Balaji spilling the beans on some of the corrupt practices like the enduring scam in TASMAC business that ran to over Rs 3500 crore and might point the fingers at Stalin’s family members.

Palaniswami asked the Chief Minister why he was so angry now and so keen on saving Senthil Balaji when he did not express such sentiments when other party leaders like A Raja and Kanimozhi were subjected to similar raids and arrests.

BJP State President K Annamalai, too, came out with a statement on Friday wondering if it was becoming of a Chief Minister to come out with statements like ‘do not provoke us’ or ‘do not touch us,’ when such intimidations fell in the domain of platform speakers addressing party meeting to keep them engrossed.

Asking the Chief Minister if it was right on his part to descend to the level of a second grade party platform speaker just for saving a politician who had changed parties five times in his career, he said that he did not see his losing his cool when so many crimes were committed in the State and even an IT officer was attacked at Karur on May 26.

Reminding Stalin of a speech he had made at Kulithalai on April 18, 2016, demanding action against Senthil Balaji, he said that the present action had been taken in just one of the cases that he had mentioned then and wondered what had changed in the last 7 years that he should react so aggressively against it instead of his party welcoming the ED crackdown.

Listing out a series of cases on which Stalin had demanded CBI enquiry, stating with a building collapse at Mogilivakkam in 2014 to the Pollachi rape case in 2019 to the alleged disbursal of assistance to farmers under the Prime Minister’s Kisan scheme in 2020, Annamalai said the DMK government making it mandatory for the CBI to seek permission for every investigation they undertook in the State showed that there was much to cover up now.