Constitution under threat: Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin

Chennai: The Indian Constitution was facing a serious threat from the present day rulers having scant respect for political traditions and were not bothered about upholding the rights of the States, Chief Minister M K Stalin rued even as he blew the poll bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by putting DMK’ youth wing in the frontline of the battle.

Even the Supreme Court’s orders were not followed by those hanging on to nominated positions and wreaking havoc in the country by crushing the federal principles, Stalin said in his epistle to his party cadre on Friday, referring to the youth wing members as sparks of fire that would illuminate the future.

Wishing the motorcycle riders of the youth wing who had embarked on the rally across the State to educate the people on the perils of the present Union Government whose politics of communalism, language hegemony and anti-humanism had already made people of all States shiver in fright, he said the rally would create an awareness on the burning issues.

The campaign by the youth brigade donning black and red colours would explain to the people the atrocities of the NEET highlighting the young lives that the medial entrance examination had taken away and would also collect half a crore signatures in the petition against the NEET, emerging triumphant in the battlefield of democracy, he said.

The motorcycle rally’s campaign would lead to creating awareness among the people who would hand out a proper verdict in the 2024 elections, he said.

Flagged off by State Minister for Youth Affairs and DMK youth wing secretary, Udhayanidhi Stalin, on Wednesday from Kanyakumari, the land’s end where the three seas converge, the motorcycle rallies would together cover over 8,647 km in 13 days and converge at Salem on November 27, he said.

The motorcyclists would pass through all the 234 Assembly constituencies in four zones in the State. The Thiruvalluvar zone in the south, the Periyar E V Ramasamy zone in the west, C N Annadurai zone in the north and M Karunanidhi zone in the Cauvery delta would all see the motorcycle borne campaigners reaching out to the people, he said.

Having inherited the political legacy of Periyar, Annadurai and Karunanidhi, the motorcyclists were now on a warpath to obtain their rights as defenders of democracy, he said, adding that they would converge in Salem, where the second youth wing conference would be held on December 17.

Recalling the formation of the youth wing in 1980 at the Rani of Jhansi Park in Madurai with him at the helm, Stalin said it was just a continuation of the launch of the DMK at the Robinson Park in Chennai in 1949 when all the founding leaders including Annadurai and Karunanidhi were all young people.

Then, 31 years later, realizing the need to infuse young blood into the party, the youth wing was started by Karunanidhi, who could gather several lakhs of cadre in half a day’s time, be it for a protest or an agitation or a meeting or a road blockade or a conference, with many of them from the youth wing, he said.

He was thankful that the organization that he built on his own was now evolving into a major force in the party after Udhayanidhi Stalin took over the reins