Will make Stalin next CM, says Cong, Vaiko's PWA success will shadow DMK combine: BJP
Chennai: A day after DMK chief M. K. Stalin proposed the name of Congress president Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Ministerial candidate, TNCC chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar who found new vigour in taking on the BJP, said on Monday that his party is determined to install a new government under the leadership of Stalin.
The idea however did not go well with the BJP and AMMK. While the BJP, relating the mega alliance to MDMK chief Vaiko’s PWA, claimed the 'experiment' to make Mr. Stalin as CM will not yield result, AMMK leader T. T. V. Dhinakaran has claimed the proposal for Rahul as the Prime Ministerial candidate, has caused "embarrassment" to the Congress which is yet to finalise its alliance or even nominate its PM candidate.
Encouraged over the prospects of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her son and Congress president Rahul giving a call from the Dravidian heartland on Sunday to bring in regime change at the Centre, TNCC chief fired fresh salvos at the BJP. He sought to know why Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had spent over '3,000 crore for installing the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (the 182-metre statue of unity near Narmada dam in Gujarat) was hesitating to spend towards the cyclone Gaja relief. Speaking to reporters in Nagercoil on Monday he alleged the BJP is meting out step-motherly treatment towards Tamil Nadu.
"The Centre sanctioned only Rs 300 crore for Gaja relief while it spent over Rs 3,000 crore for Patel's statue," he remarked.
Meanwhile, BJP state secretary Karu Nagarajan claimed the "success of the PWA experiment in TN will shadow the opposition alliance." "The MDMK chief Vaiko who has shifted his stand four times since the last four Assembly elections - in contesting the polls on his own, aligning with AIADMK, then with PWA and had even boycotted the poll - is now talking of making Stalin the next CM of TN. This, I am sure, will end up on the lines of his earlier attempts to make DMDK president Vijayakanth the next CM of TN when the PWA was formed (2016)," Nagarajan said.
The irony is Karu Nagarajan said Vaiko has been one of the acerbic critics of Stalin. "Now he has vowed to make Stalin CM, perhaps like he made Vijayakanth the next CM."
"No one knows what Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal CM) or even Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala CM) who was sitting on stage (at late M. Karunanidhi's statue unveiling function on Sunday) had in mind. All of a sudden Stalin makes the announcement, unmindful of what Rahul had said," Dhinakaran said. Speaking to reporters after calling on jailed V.K. Sasikala in Bengaluru, the AMMK leader claimed Rahul himself had said he would don the mantle if all the opposition parties accepted him as the PM candidate.
