Oratory skills should be your strength, not weakness: Stalin advises PTR

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday offered advice to his cabinet colleague P T R Palanivel Thiaga Rajan that his oratory skills should be a strength, not a weakness in order to ensure his words don’t become fodder for the DMK’s political adversaries, whom he described as “adept at chewing empty words.”

Stalin counselled Thiaga Rajan, one of the DMK’s most articulate faces on ideological matters, at an event to release a book to commemorate the 138th birthday anniversary of the latter’s grandfather and former First Minister of the Madras State, P T Rajan.

In his speech, Stalin pointed to Rajan being referred as the last leader of the Justice Party, a precursor to the DMK, and said there could be no end to the organisation that sowed the seeds of social justice and equality in Tamil Nadu.

“I declared on the floor of the Tamil Nadu Assembly that the government I lead is an extension of the Justice Party government of the 1930s,” Stalin said. The Justice Party pioneered several welfare schemes later adopted by the DMK and its offshoot, AIADMK, notably the midday meals scheme.

Referring to Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, the third generation politician from the family – his father P T R Palanivel Rajan was a Speaker of the Assembly and minister -- as his “beloved brother”, Stalin said his cabinet colleague was an intellectual capable of presenting powerful arguments.

“I want to tell him that his oratory should be his strength, not his weakness. Thiaga Rajan knows why I say this. Our enemies are adept at chewing empty words. As the leader of the DMK and as someone who cares for you, I am duty-bound to advise that your words should not become fodder for their (opposition) slander,” Stalin said.

The Chief Minister said he was confident that Thiaga Rajan, who “never dismisses my words”, will understand the meaning and depth of the advice.

Though Stalin didn’t elaborate what incident made him advise Thiaga Rajan, the IT Minister’s lament that his department doesn’t have many powers to decide on IT parks in the Assembly on April 21 might have weighed heavily on his mind.

Rajan, a top banker before he became an MLA in 2016, was credited with bringing in several reforms in the Finance department but was shifted to Information Technology portfolio within weeks after a purported audio tape of him went viral on social media.

Recalling P T Rajan’s statement in 1938 during the first anti-Hindi agitation that Tamils were not against Hindi but only opposed its imposition, Stalin said the domineering attitude of Delhi (Centre) hasn’t changed, nor has the DMK’s fighting spirit waned.

“Back then, P T Rajan questioned Rajaji (the then Chief Minister of Madras State); today, we question the BJP. Only the faces of our adversaries have changed but their mindset and intentions remain the same. Our struggle will continue until that changes. I repeat, no one can conquer Tamil soil,” he added.

Listing the contributions of P T Rajan to Tamil society, Stalin said not just Thiaga Rajan, but he too was an heir of the Justice Party leader.

“Everyone present here is P T Rajan’s heir, his Dravidian heir. Some people get irritated at the word ‘heir,’ and that’s why I keep repeating it. Let them continue to get agitated,” Stalin said, in an apparent dig at parties accusing the DMK of criticizing dynastic politics.