Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin dispelled the raging rumour that the stage has been set for his son and State Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin to be crowned Deputy Chief Minister after the DMK’s youth wing conference at Salem on January 21 and asked his party cadre not to get diverted by such tittle-tattle for their task was to ensure that the clarion call raised in Salem to retrieve the State’s rights resonated at New Delhi.
In an epistle to his party colleagues on Saturday to greet them on the occasion of Pongal, Stalin said that another gossip floated by unsavoury elements was on his health, which he had clarified with his declaration at the Tamil Diaspora Day event in Chennai that he would work, work and work and there was no reason for him to look pale and dull, as it was suggested, when the people of the State were all happy.
Though the hearsay on the Deputy Chief Minister, too, was put to rest by Udhayanidhi Stalin himself through a fitting reply that all Ministers in the Cabinet were aiding the Chief Minister as his deputies and there was no need for a Deputy Chief Minister, Stalin wanted party cadre to be not swayed by those rumours and get diverted from their goal was to launch a fight for the State’s rights through the Salem conference.
As of now the party had to focus on two major things with the same enthusiasm and cheer that the Pongal festival had brought to them and they were one, to strive for the development of Tamil Nadu and two, to usher in social justice, equality, secularism and good governance in the Indian Union.
Dislodging the decadent government, gripped with megalomania and posing a threat to democracy, from power to pave the way for the blossoming of democracy and the installation of a government that would respect the rights of the States and adhere to the principles of federalism after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls was the need of the hour, he said.
Pongal, marking the dawn of the Tamil month Thai, as the old Tamil adage (Thai piranthal Vazhi pirakum) goes, would be a harbinger to the new government that would protect the country’s plurality, appreciate religious amity, shun communalism, harbour no language chauvinism and respect the Rights of the States, he said
The DMK government was today a model for the other States to follow and they were emulating its pioneering schemes like free bus rides for women and free breakfast for school children by either implementing them or including them in their election manifestos, he said.
Restraining his party functionaries from rushing to Chennai to greet him on the occasion of Pongal, the party president asked them to celebrate the festival in their own places by organizing ‘Equality Pongal,’ conducting games to people of all ages and women and honouring those who win Jallikattu events presenting prizes.
He also wanted the cadre to draw rice flour patterns, proclaiming ‘Equality Pongal,’ in front of their houses and upload those images in social media platforms. That would be the best Pongal greetings for him by the cadre, he said.
