Annamalai’s corruption charges intensify DMK-BJP war of words

The ruling DMK has been kept sufficiently engaged by the state BJP in the recent months. After a few rounds of communal critique, calling the DMK anti-Hindu, the BJP has now started leveling corruption allegations against the ruling party.

Unmindful of the veracity of the allegations leveled by state BJP chief K Annamalai, the saffron party’s critique has kept the treasury benches adequately busy in the state. Ministers are busy responding to the allegations of the state BJP one after another of late. While state Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Monday gave a pointby-point rebuttal to Annamalai’s allegations, his cabinet colleague TM Anbarasan, Minister for Rural Industries, took the statement war to a new low by publicly going personal against Annamalai in his usual rustic fashion.

Not so long ago, Electricity Minister Senthilbalaji had lambasted Annamalai for crying foul over TNEB transactions. Even a few DMK insiders were not averse to admitting that they were responding more to BJP than the principal Opposition party AIADMK in recent months.

DMK state joint secretary for media relations, S Tamilan Prasanna reasoned that it was not unusual for them to be called anti-Hindu by right-wingers while in the opposition and face corruption allegations when in power.

“Does the BJP deserve to talk about corruption? Thousands of crores collected in the name of the Prime Minister’s office for the PM Cares fund has gone to private parties. There is no audit. If this is not corruption, what else is?” Prasanna said, criticising Annamalai for not being able to differentiate between protein powder and milk powder.

Accusing the state BJP of securing information and broadcasting portfolio for a Rajya Sabha MP nominated from Tamil Nadu for a political reason, Prasanna said,” They have used the I and B portfolio to intimidate media here and get attention. Normally, we would ignore it. But, they are exploiting the media attention to level ridiculous allegations against the government. We are only exposing the idiocy of the state BJP chief. Where did he vanish when dhaal and egg were procured at an exorbitant price during the previous AIADMK regime and when Vyapam whistleblowers were killed? What he does is a sheer attention-seeking act.”