Slamming the Modi government for discriminating against Tamil Nadu in allocation of funds and financial devolution, Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin on Friday said it is not enough for the state to remain a part of the Indian map but should also get its due.
“Tirunelveli is renowned the world over for its halwa, but the halwa that the Union Government gives to states has become more popular. Tamil Nadu is neither getting funds nor justice,” he said after distributing welfare assistance to beneficiaries at Tirunelveli city, concluding his two-day field inspection of the district.
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The other day, he also purchased halwa at the night halwa shop (Iruttu Kdai Halwa), in front of the famed Nellaiyappar temple.
“Tamil Nadu doesn’t even get a mention in the Union Budget. Last year, Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts were devastated by unprecedented floods in a century and we asked for Rs 37,907 crore for relief and rehabilitation. It fell on deaf ears. We organised protest demonstrations and our MPs raised this in Parliament, but to no avail.
“When we moved the court, the Union Government released just Rs 200 crore, which is not even one percent of what we have sought. Funds and schemes are given only to states ruled by the BJP’s allies and where elections are impending. Only at the time of elections, Tamil Nadu appears on their radar,” the Chief Minister said and asked whether it was enough for Tamil Nadu to remain in the India map. The state should get its due, he emphasised.
Despite the BJP-led Modi government’s blatant discrimination, Stalin pointed out that Tamil Nadu continues to be on top of all development indices of the Union Government. Development works and welfare programmes have not suffered as the state government continues to carry them out with its own resources.
The BJP, he said is unable to digest the DMK government upholding primacy of Tamil and digging deep to declare the antiquity of the Tamils and their true history besides striving to promote education and spearheading the demand for state autonomy. Further, we have the legacy of ‘Periyar’ EV Ramasamy, the rationalist leader of the non-Brahmin movement of which the DMK is an offshoot.
Listing the development works and industrialisation taking place in South Tamil Nadu, the Chief Minister said, “Posterity will remember that it was Muthvel Karunanidhi Stalin’s Dravidian Model of Governance which hd changed the face of the southern Pandya kingdom (Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and parts of Thoothukudi districts as a highly developed region. We have put up a solid foundation for that.”
It must be recalled that in the early 1990s, the southern districts of Tamil Nadu were engulfed in widespread caste violence between the Dalits and the dominant intermediary Thevar community. A Commission appointed by the then Karunanidhi government had recommended rapid industrialisation of the region.
Dismissing opposition criticism of the government, Stalin said “I am not a person who says that there is no enemy as far as I can see. But, rather than responding to canards, we are interested in constructive work. And our ideological clarity and performance will ensure that the DMK will rule forever.”
