Palaniswami hits back at CM Stalin, asks if DMK has locus standi to utter Anna's name

Chennai: AIADMK top leader Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday wondered if Chief Minister MK Stalin and the DMK had locus standi to utter Dravidian icon C N Annadurai's name and slammed the CM for "speaking politics in government function". Palaniswami's tirade follows Stalin's "AIADMK has mortgaged the name of Anna itself," jibe.

Alleging that the Chief Minister did nothing for the people during the past 4-year rule of the DMK, Palaniswami in a statement said the AIADMK was founded by late leader M G Ramachandran in 1972 as Karunanidhi "buried Anna's ideology" and transformed the DMK into a "family camp for loot".

Further, the leader of opposition said: "We will not give up Anna even for a day, even a minute, who lives not only in our party's name and flag, but also in our blood." The AIADMK top leader yet again blamed the DMK for "family rule" and said it went against the ideology of Anna, who founded the DMK in 1949.

Stalin, who has only "commission, collection and corruption as policy," need not lecture the AIADMK on Periyar and Anna, Palaniswami said. The former chief minister vowed that "peace, prosperity, growth, and state rights, lost due to the DMK," would be retrieved by him following a win in the 2026 Assembly election. He said this was his first poll assurance.

In a government event at Tirupathur near Vellore, the chief minister, without naming the BJP or any Right wing outfit, said they were trying hard to cause confusion. Invoking the legacy of Periyar, Anna, and Karunanidhi, and hailing them for nurturing and shaping the state, Stalin said: "You (Hindu Munnani/BJP) are playing video, trivializing such leaders! When such a video clip was played, the mute spectators were those who run their party in the name of Anna," the DMK president hit out at the AIADMK, the archrival.

"They (AIADMK) have mortgaged the name of Anna itself. Those who have mortgaged their party, should not be allowed to mortgage Tamil Nadu tomorrow," he said and urged the people to understand the objective of the conspiracy against Tamil Nadu and its people and teach a fitting lesson to the AIADMK and BJP. Annadurai passed away on February 3, 1969. He was the chief minister from 1967 to 1969.