Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday said he does not want to “publicize those indulging in cheap politics,” in his first public reaction to alleged audio tapes in which the State’s finance minister is purported to have accused the DMK’s first family of corruption.

Stalin, who is the president of DMK, said that Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (PTR) has already responded to the matter twice. “He himself gave a detailed explanation on this two times. I have time only to do my duties for people. I do not want to talk about anything further on this and give publicity to those indulging in cheap politics,” Stalin said.

Stalin said this during his regular ‘Ungalin Oruvan’ question and answer series in which the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister responds to various questions relating to various political developments.

The Bharatiya Janata Party Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai recently released audio tapes purportedly of Palanivel Thiaga Rajan accusing Chief Minister MK Stalin’s family of “corruption”.

PTR has, however, refuted allegations made in the audio clips and called them “false” and “fabricated”.

Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forms government in Telangana they will scrap reservations for Muslims, the Tamil Nadu chief minister said, “The comments show a grudge on minority communities. The Union Minister has spoken about this for electoral gains. The BJP high command believes that spewing hatred on Muslims makes Hindus happy. But that is not the truth. People who haven’t cast votes in favour of the BJP are mostly Hindus. They wish for peace and brotherhood. In a country with secularism in the preamble of its constitution, Union Minister himself speaking in such a manner is a breach of the constitution”.

Stalin also reacted to the recent CAG report which pointed out the corruption during the AIADMK regime he said, “People know about AIADMK’s corrupt government very well. Now the CAG report has proved that with evidence. There would be a further course of action and an investigation will be conducted.”

“As per amendments made to the Prevention of Corruption Act in 2018, certain pre-investigation approvals and sanctions for prosecution are needed to carry forward these investigations. On that base investigation would be done and action would be taken on former AIADMK government ministers and will be taken to the judiciary”, he said.
Speaking on his government completing two years, Stalin said that he is fully satisfied with his government and also mentioned the DMK government has fulfilled 75 per cent of poll promises.

“In the 5-year tenure of the government, two years is not even half. Yet, we fulfilled 75 per cent of our poll promises. We have rescued and rectified the entire government machinery from the 10-year tenure of the AIADMK Government to a great extent. Still, there is a lot to rectify”, Stalin added.