Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Monday accused DMK president M.K. Stalin of lying to the people about the Madras High Court’s judgment setting aside the election of the AIADMK’s A.K. Bose as the MLA of Tirupparankundram.
Addressing a campaign event in the Tirupparankundram constituency, where a bypoll is due on May 19, he said the court never commented on the genuineness of the late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s thumb impression on the nomination papers filed by Bose for contesting the byelection in November 2016.
“It only found problems with the procedures followed by the Election Commission in accepting her thumb impression on the nomination papers,” he said.
In March, the court set aside the election of Bose and criticised EC officials for playing “a fraud in connivance with the ruling party” by violating the procedures while accepting the thumb impressions of Jayalalithaa, who was hospitalised at the time.
The ruling was made on a case filed by P. Saravanan, the DMK’s candidate for the byelection in 2016. Bose died in August 2018 due to illness.
During his recent campaign in Tirupparankundram, Mr. Stalin alleged that the byelection was necessitated not just by the demise of Bose, but also by the ‘fraud’ committed by the AIADMK in obtaining the thumb impressions of Jayalalithaa.
Responding to the allegation, the Chief Minister on Monday said Mr. Stalin was exaggerating the observations made by the court to confuse and mislead the public. “He is using derogatory words that are unbecoming of a leader of a political party,” Mr. Palaniswami said.
Welfare schemes
Stating that the present AIADMK government was implementing a number of welfare schemes for the people, he criticised the DMK for approaching the court to stop a scheme that intended to deposit ₹2,000 in the bank accounts of people living below the poverty line. “However, the scheme will certainly be implemented by our government once the elections are over,” he said.
On Mr. Stalin’s claim that unemployment was rampant, the Chief Minister asked what the DMK did to reduce unemployment when it shared power at the Centre for about 14 years.