Congress will back Stalin for Tamil Nadu CM post: Dinesh Gundu Rao

Chennai: The Congress Party in Tamil Nadu would fight the 2021 Assembly elections with a view to forming a government under the Chief Ministership of DMK President M K Stalin, said Dinesh Gundu Rao, who was recently appointed by the AICC as ‘In-charge Tamil Nadu,’  on Thursday.

Rao, who was on his first visit to the State after taking up the new responsibility, told the media that the Congress-DMK alliance was very strong and would sweep the elections.

Later, in a statement, he said: ‘Our leader Shri Rahul Gandhi had expressed his desire to see Shri Stalin as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu during the campaign for 2019 Lok Sabha elections.’

Several top leaders of the TNCC held talks with the new AICC observer on party affairs and Rao himself had planned to hold discussions with district leaders of the party.

He told the media that the BJP was a tyrannical party that aspired to bring in a single party rule. Accusing the Centre of not providing funds to the States, he said the new National Education Policy 2020 was aimed at appropriating the powers and rights of the States.

The introduction of NEET had led to a situation in which the States had to go to the Centre for every help, he said.

Speaking on the recently passed Agriculture Bills, he said the livelihood of farmers would be destroyed when the laws were implemented. Pointing out that the Bills were passed without any discussion in Parliament, Rao said the Congress party would mobilise two crore signatures from people on a memorandum opposing the bills.

The memorandum would be handed over to the President, urging him not to give sanction for the bills when they were referred to him, he said. The Congress would coordinate with the opposition parties and fight against the Bills, he said.

Expressing regret over the AIADMK supporting the bill, he said the party should have joined the opposition parties in opposing it. It was tragic that it was not happening, he said.

Alleging that the Centre had not done anything substantial to handle the situation arising out of the Coronavirus crisis, the Congress leader said that the promise of an allocation of Rs 20 lakh crore was a humbug.

Under the BJP regime, India’s development had dipped and today it was ranked below Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, he said.