Salem: Winding up his marathon campaign for the April 18 Lok Sabha elections on his home turf on Tuesday evening, the senior leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami expressed the hope that Salem district will remain the 'AIADMK's forte' as it was under J Jayalalithaa.
“People of Salem should support the AIADMK in a big way as Salem had remained the forte of 'Amma'. In the last Assembly elections, our party won ten out of the 11 Assembly seats in the district; adding more glory to that record, as I a Salem man is now the Chief Minister and this is the first election under my tenure, the electorate of Salem district should support the party in a bigger way in this Lok Sabha election,” Edappadi asserted campaigning for AIADMK Salem candidate, K. R. S. Saravanan.
Assuring more development and infrastructure projects for Salem, Mr. Palaniswami lashed out at the DMK leader M K Stalin on various counts, beginning with the latter proposing Rahul Gandhi for Prime Minister's post. “But Rahul in his speech in Karnataka has assured construction of reservoir across Cauvery at Mekedatu and that Cauvery Management Board (CMB) would be wound up. Did this not amount to depriving Tamil Nadu of its rights over the Cauvery,” countered the Chief Minister.
Mr. Palaniswami also made a virtual point-by-point refutations of the charges made by Mr. Stalin on various issues including the AIADMK's alleged denial of a piece of land to bury the late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi next to the Anna memorial on the Marina sands in Chennai. “If Mr. Stalin can comfortably visit Madurai today, it is because of the good law and order we have maintained,” said Palaniswami, cornering the DMK leader on that allegation too.
“After the elections the government will probe the mysterious deaths of several persons under previous DMK regimes including Anna Nagar Ramesh,” thundered Edappadi Palaniswami as he sought to reply to charges leveled by Mr. Stalin.
