Needling CM J.
Needling CM J. Jayalalithaa in her home turf, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday asked people to vote out the AIADMK government of CM Jayalalithaa, who preferred to “stay within the four walls” instead of being on the streets of Chennai during the last year’s unprecedented floods.
Addressing rallies in Madurai, Coimbatore and Madurai, Mr Gandhi said there are two leaders in this country who believe they have all the answers to everyone’s problems.
“One is sitting in Delhi, he is the Prime Minister of the country and the other one is chief minister of Tamil Nadu,” Mr Gandhi said, charging the Jayalalithaa government with failure on all fronts.
“Tamil Nadu does not need a government which is run by a person who stays within four walls and does not even have the decency to come out and see what happened when floods hit Chennai I could come from Delhi to see what happened in Tamil Nadu and to help, to give a hand to the poor people but the chief minister could not walk out of her house,” Mr Gandhi said.
In a first meeting in which seniors of both DMK and Congress parties shared a dais, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin vowed to “bring down the corrupt AIADMK government from power” in Tamil Nadu.
Complimenting each other while addressing an election campaign meeting at Madurai on Saturday, both the leaders told the electorate that they share the same vision to make Tamil Nadu a best performing state in the country.
“As Stalin has mentioned, we both first met at Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in ceremony at Patna. Though we didn’t say much to each other, both of us understood directly that we are thinking on the same lines,” Mr Gandhi said.
Appreciating the leadership quality of Mr Stalin, Mr Gandhi said that he falls in a leadership category who go to the people, listen to them and realise the wisdom from them on the lines of great leaders like Periyar, Kamaraj, MGR and M. Karunanidhi.
In Madurai, Mr Gandhi shared the stage with DMK Treasurer M K Stalin in Madurai and Rajya Sabha MP Ms Kanimozhi in Coimbatore. “Tamil Nadu had leaders like Kamaraj, MGR and Karunanidhi, who were humble, reached out and listened to everyone. In contrast, we have a Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who is absolutely convinced that she doesn’t need to meet anybody in Tamil Nadu. This leader does not reach out to people and does not believe that poor people have wisdom,” he said. Complementing each other while addressing the rally in Madurai, Mr Gandhi and Mr Stalin said they share the vision to make Tamil Nadu the best performing state in the country. Noting that the number of TASMAC shops in Tamil Nadu has increased from 1,800 to 6,800 over the last five years, he said the DMK Government would ensure that prohibition is implemented in the state if it came to power. “In the last elections, Ms Jayalalithaa said she would give Rs 5000 per family for mixer grinder and other household items. What she didn’t tell you is that her liquor policy would take Rs 65,000 from every single family in Tamil Nadu...vote for Congress-DMK and we will reduce the number of shops to zero,” he said. Mr Gandhi alleged that though the erstwhile Congress Government wanted to implement the Sethusamudram project which would have had brought industrial development in the state, Ms Jayalalithaa has stalled it.
