AIADMK assails Congress, allies for bringing in caste dimension to Cabinet shuffle
Addressing a press conference, Mr. Anbalagan condemned what he alleged were attempts of the Congress and its allies to drive a wedge between communities on the basis of caste for electoral gain.
The AIADMK leader said though two Ministers, one from the BJP and the other from the AINRC, had been replaced for various reasons disconnected from their community background, the Congress was trying to create a controversy by injecting a caste dimension to these decisions taken by the leadership of the respective parties.
He dismissed as an outright lie the Congress's claim that the Chief Minister Rangasamy-led AINRC-BJP coalition was the only government to not have Ministers from the Scheduled Castes community. Mr. Anbalagan proceeded to list list previous Congress Ministries, including the governments headed by the three-time Chief Minister M.O.H. Farook in 1985 or V. Vaithilingam later. Even the coalition government led by DMK Chief Minister R.V. Janakiraman (1996-99) did not have representation from these communities, he said. Both the Congress and the DMK are conveniently forgetting this history in their pretence of advocating for the Dalit communities, he added.
Mr. Anbalagan said he would seek the party leadership's concurrence for petitioning the Election Commission of India to probe the declared election expenditure of the CPI(M) in Tamil Nadu to contest the 2024 general election. The CPM, which had received ₹10 crore donation from the DMK, has claimed that the money was used for electioneering in the two victorious Parliamentary constituencies. Even if that statement was taken at face value, the total expenditure could not have exceeded ₹1.80 core for the two constituencies.
If given the go-ahead by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, Mr. Anbalagan said he would seek an ECI probe into the discrepency in stated expenditure that raised a cloud over the legitimacy of the electoral wins in the two seats.
Mr. Anbalagan assailed the Communist parties for serving as mouthpieces of the DMK at the expense of their ideological core. He pointed to the glaring contradiction of the Communist parties being rivals in Kerala and allies elsewhere, and said that it exposed their ideological compromises.
Mr. Anbalagan also called for an intensive crackdown on the rising drug trafficking menace in the Union Territory, especially the Karaikal region. According to the AIADMK leader, Karaikal was also turning a conduit for smuggling drugs by the sea route. He urged the Chief Minister and Home Minister to convene a high-level meeting of the police top brass to discuss pressing issues.
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