Campaigning in favour of AIADMK front candidates from the Tiruchy revenue district, he said that the DMK president MK Stalin has been spreading lies to defame the government. He stressed that the Tiruchy was the fortress of AIADMK from the period of late chief minister MGR to late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, while listing out various developmental projects brought out to the State. “For Tiruchy alone, we have brought 60 Amma mini-clinics, 16,000 greenhouses and a proposal to provide concrete houses for the poor. However, Stalin has been campaigning that AIADMK has done nothing to the people,” he said.

Stating that the NEET was brought out in 2010 during the UPA rule in which DMK shared the ministry, Palaniswami said that Jayalalithaa had strongly opposed it. “Still, we continue to oppose it, but for time being, we have arranged with the 7.5 per cent horizontal reservation with which as many as 435 students, who pursued an education in government schools, have been admitted. By next year, the number would increase to around 600 as we have started as many as 11 medical colleges in a year,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said that he had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday during the rally that the farmers have been struggling a lot to get water from Karnataka and stressed the need for Godavari-Cauvery linking project. “Has Stalin spoken a single line on linking rivers?” he asked.

“Our delegation of ministers met both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Chief Ministers on the linking of Godavari-Cauvery linking and they have given a positive response.Once this project has been materialised, the Cauvery Delta farmers would get adequate water for their agricultural activities,” he said. Pointing out the corruption complaints submitted to the Governor by the DMK delegation, he said that he had gone through the complaint against him, which was just a cancelled project.