Apologise to farmers, history will not pardon you: Stalin tells EPS
CHENNAI: DMK president MK Stalin on Sunday urged Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to tender an apology to the farmers for his party supporting the Farm Bill in the Parliament. Stalin also said the CM should publicly ‘confess’ that he vouched for the anti-farmer legislation to only save himself and his ministers.
Taking exception to EPS defending the agriculture Bills moved by the Centre, Stalin said that 13 political parties across the country, including even a few allies of the BJP were strongly opposing the Bills, while AIADMK was among the four parties supporting it.
“Instead of releasing the statement, the CM could have told farmers with folded hands that ‘I am in an alliance with the BJP and supported the Bills to enjoy the protection of the BJP to save my chief ministership, my ministers and myself from the corruptions we were involved in now and in the coming six months. So, pardon me’,” said Stalin in a statement issued on Sunday.
Stating that the CM should have either read the Bills thoroughly or got someone to read it for him, the DMK president said the height of the CM’s meaningless act was his justification of the support to the Bill after releasing a statement authored
CM would escape from corruption cases by remaining in the safety net offered by the BJP for another six months, but would not escape the punishment of the people
—MK Stalin, DMK president
by someone. Reiterating that farmers would lose their market freedom and would not get minimum support price and majority of the unorganised small farmers would be affected by the agriculture Bills, Stalin said that history would not pardon EPS for supporting the anti-farmer Bills in favour of the ruling BJP despite claiming to be a farmer himself.
Stalin also added that the CM would escape from corruption cases by remaining in the safety net offered by the BJP for another six months, but would not escape the punishment of the people.
AIADMK led by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami remains a good friend of farmers, who solely rely on agriculture, according to Cooperation Minister Sellur K. Raju. After a programme organised on Sunday at Pasumalai in Madurai, where he extended benefits and settlements entitled to as many as 957 workers of a mill, the Minister said following a series of struggles for a long period of nearly twenty five years, they are fortunate enough to get their settlements now. The workers are entitled to get a sum of Rs. 2.81 crore, the Minister said. While addressing, he said when DMK was in power, Madurai was a haven for rowdy elements and properties of the poor were usurped. At one stage, people were in search of food in parts of the state because there’s a famine. Recalling all these, he asked, should the DMK come back to power. Since the AIADMK is concerned about the welfare of the poor, the state government is providing sixty kilos of rice to each of the poor families. Hence, he garnered support for his party on the occasion.