Stalin detained during stir against governor
CHENNAI: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working president MK Stalin was detained along with other party leaders and workers in Chennai on Saturday for attempting to lay a siege to Raj Bhavan.
They were later released in the evening.
The DMK leader was protesting against alleged interference of Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit in the functioning of the state administration and demanded his resignation.
Stalin had taken out a rally at 10am to protest the governor’s intervention in government works but was stopped by the police near Saidapet court building. Following this, the DMK leader staged a sit-in protest in Sardar Vallabhai Patel Road for nearly an hour.
“DMK opposes the frequent review meetings of the governor as it is challenging the state’s autonomy. Therefore, our party workers are showing black flags to the governor when he goes for such meetings,” Stalin said addressing the protesters and condemned the arrest of party workers.
Stalin was referring to the arrest and remand of 192 DMK workers who had greeted the governor with black flags when he visited Namakkal on Friday.
The DMK leader pointed out that his party had shown black flags to former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, but the party workers were never arrested for doing so.
He also flayed chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and deputy chief minister O Pan- neerselvam for not raising any objections over the governor’s review meetings.
“The chief minister and deputy chief minister are following the directions of BJP. So they are not able to stop governor from visiting districts to hold review meetings,” Stalin alleged.
Former union minister A Raja, eight other DMK MLAs and 400 party workers were detained along with Stalin by the Guindy police as they staged the sit-in protest.
Guindy inspector of police N S Kumar said, “The DMK leaders were held up for launching a rally without proper permission and also for staging a protest in the public place.”
The DMK leaders and workers were later released around 6pm.
EVKS Ilangovan, former union minister and former TN Pradesh Congress committee president called on Stalin and extended his support while the latter was kept in detention.