Judges, advocates take out mediation awareness rally

“I raised this issue in Parliament and within a few weeks, I was thrown out of the Lok Sabha and my membership was snatched and my house was taken away,” he said. “Anyway, I did not want the house. I have lakhs and millions of houses across the country and asked the people will they not open the door for me,” he said.

“It is not enough for Mr. Modi to recite The Tirukkural and says he loves ‘idli’ and ‘dosai’,” Mr. Rahul said, adding, “We don’t have a problem with you liking ‘idli’, ‘vada’ and ‘dosa’. But do not attack the Tamil language, its history, culture and tradition.”

According to him, Mr. Modi legalised corruption through the electoral bonds scheme, which was declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Mr. Modi used the ED, the CBI and the IT Department to raid the business establishments and a few days later, the cases would be closed after the companies remitted money to the BJP through these bonds.

Mr. Rahul said Mr. Modi did nothing for the poor and said he should list his achievements in the last 10 years while seeking votes and stop attacking traditions and culture. India, he said, is under a government that is worse than the British, and 83% of the unemployed are youth. Listing the schemes set forth in the Congress manifesto, he promised Minimum Support Price for farmers, exemption from NEET, waiver of farm loans, and doubling of the wages of Accredited Social Health Activists and Anganwadi workers.

Addressing his first election rally in Tamil Nadu this season at Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli earlier in the day, Mr. Rahul called the 2024 election an “ideological battle” between the INDIA bloc and the BJP for saving the Indian Constitution, democracy and pluralism, He exuded confidence that the INDIA bloc would win in this battle with the people’s overwhelming mandate.

He said the INDIA bloc was fighting for freedom and equality while the BJPled combine and Prime Minister Narendra Modiled government were backing the ideals of the RSS. While the INDIA bloc believed in a pluralistic nation with many different languages and cultures, the BJP was professing its theory of one nation, one language, one culture and one leader. But, for the INDIA bloc, all are equal.

According to him, sustained attacks were being made on Tamil, Tamil culture, history and tradition and any attack on Tamil was nothing less than attack on Tamils. There could be no India without Tamil, Bengali, and other Indian languages and all Indian traditions, languages, culture and history are sacred.

Mr. Rahul said ₹16 lakh crore in loans was given to 21 Indians under Mr. Modi, but he refused to waive crop loans taken by farmers.

He claimed only 2 or 3 large industrialists, none of them from Tamil Nadu, were being given government contracts and other benefits. “Just because Adani was close to the Prime Minister and he was helping the Prime Minister, ports, airports, wind, solar and coal power units, and defence sector contracts were being given to Adani, even as the micro, small and medium enterprises were decimated by demonetisation and the GST,” he said.

Backing Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s demand for flood relief from the Centre, Mr. Rahul said the repeated appeals were turned down. “But they mocked at the relief given by the State government to the flood affected people as ‘pitchai’ (alms),” he said.

Mr. Gandhi released a compact disc containing poll campaign songs and Thoothukudi MP and candidate Kanimozhi received it. Ministers Thangam Thennarasu and Anita R. Radhakrishnan, Tiruchi MP Su. Thirunavukkarasar, TNCC president K. Selvaperunthagai and others were present.

Judges, advocates, court staff and college students took out a rally from Madurai district court premises to Government Law College to create awareness of mediation and its importance on Friday.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S. Sivakadatcham flagged off the rally on the Madurai District Court campus. Following the rally, the mediation process and its importance was explained to the college students. The rally was held as part of the Mediation Awareness Week celebrations organised by the Madurai District Mediation and Conciliation Centre.

Earlier, a book stall on awareness of mediation was inaugurated on the Madurai district court premises.

A special live programme was conducted at a nearby radio station, as part of the awareness programme.