Farmers Movement Archive

Stalin dares Palaniswami to accept debate challenge ‘if he is a man’

Salem: DMK chief M K Stalin on Saturday dared chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to accept the party deputy general secretary Raja’s challenge to face him in an open debate on who was corrupt and the 2G spectrum allocation issue “if he was a man”. Referring to the 2G scam, Palaniswami, during his visit to Salem a few days ago, had said “the DMK had looted Rs1.76 lakh crore and its corruption was equal to the state budget.”Subsequently, Raja had posed the challenge and given the chief minister three days to accept the same. Addressing the farmers and party carders on SRP Grounds at Kadasraman on the outskirts of Salem during an agitation to oppose the Union government’s farm laws, Stalin warned the state government of continuing the protests if it didn’t release the DMK cadres who were arrested just to prevent them from participating the agitation.The DMK chief also appealed police officials to release the DMK cadres as the agitation was held to support the farmers, who were providing them food.Stalin lambasted prime minister Narendra Modi for bringing in the farm acts without getting any consent from the opposition parties that too during the lockdown. Referring to the farmers’ protests in New Delhi, he said they were waging a war against the BJP government and would hopefully emerge victorious.Taking a dig at Modi for describing himself a son of a poor mother, the DMK chief said, “Being a poor mother’s son, he should not have betrayed other poor sons (farmers).” He then urged Modi to ensure that farmers were getting minimum support price for their produce that he had promised during a mann ki baat speech.Stalin said Palaniswami was betraying farmers while projecting himself as a farmer. “He is saying farmers won’t be affected by the new legislations. He should then highlight the benefits. While states such as Kerala, Punjab and Haryana had opposed the Centre’s move, Tamil Nadu government did not do anything.”

The Times of India

2020-12-06

Coimbatore