Chennai: AIADMK leaders, functionaries and cadre organized a massive ‘hunger strike’ outside the Rajarathnam Stadium in Chennai from 9 am to 5 pm on Thursday demanding a CBI probe into the Kallakurichi Hooch Tragedy that claimed 63 lives and the ouster of Chief Minister M K Stalin, who, they said, was responsible for the cataclysm.
Apart from all top honchos of the party sitting on fast through the day even though the police granted permission for the protest only late on Wednesday night, that too with 23 conditions, the principal opposition party in the Assembly was supported not only by its ally in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the DMDK, but also from the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) led by Seeman.
In a message on X, Seeman accused the DMK government of rejecting the AIADMK’s democratic demand for a House discussion on the hooch tragedy and dismissing the party MLAs en masse, including Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, from the Assembly and said that it was highly condemnable.
He said the DMK government was following the path taken by the anti-democratic ways of the Union BJP government and adopting the same tyrannical methods, which was being opposed by the AIADMK through the fast undertaken in Chennai with Palaniswami helming the protest.
The NTK supported the AIADMK protest and assured support from protecting democracy, Seeman said, while his party treasurer, Ravan, visited the fast venue expressing solidarity with the party and its agitation programme against the DMK government, along with DMDK president Premalatha vijaykanth and other smaller electoral allies of the AIADMK.
Addressing the protestors at the venue, Palaniswami said 63 persons had died so far while many others who consumed the illicit arrack were still in hospital in serious conditions. It was the gross apathy of the government and the authorities that led to the death toll going high, he said and explained that district collector, at the behest of local AIADMK MLAs, denied hooch to be the cause of the death of the first three victims on day one.
It was that denial by the authorities that did not stop more people from going for the same hooch that was openly sold at Karunapuram in Kallakurichi and losing their lives and eye sight, he said. Even the hospitals where the victims were admitted first with symptoms of poisoning did not initially have the antidote to heal them, he said.
When the earlier hooch tragedy happened in Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts in 2023 and 22 people lost their lives, the Chief Minister said the CB-CID would bring out the truth behind it and the sales of illicit liquor would be eliminated, he recalled and said that was the reason his party was demanding a CBI enquiry as the CB-CID would not be able to crack the case in which many politicians and top officials of the State were involved.
Palaniswami said that the Chief Minister did not give his reply on the tragedy when the opposition leaders were present in the House and said that they were just given 10 minutes to discuss the matter. The voice of the opposition was not heard in the Assembly, he said.
