Defeated in a row in 10 elections, TN electorate will bid final goodbye to EPS for aligning with BJP: Stalin

Handing out defeats in a row in 10 successive elections since the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the people of Tamil Nadu will bid a final goodbye to AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) at the hustings in 2026, Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin slammed the leader of the principal opposition on Wednesday.

“You have blamed the alliance with the BJP as the reason for the AIADMK’s defeat in the 2021 assembly election and your party men have also openly admitted to this. Yet, you have aligned with the same BJP now. Entangled in a duplicitous game with Delhi, you have mortgaged the party with crores of members, only to save your family,” Stalin said, speaking at a government function in Mayiladuthurai after laying the foundation for various projects and inaugurating completed ones.

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“When your own AIADMK cadre are unwilling to trust you, how will the people of Tamil Nadu believe you?” he asked, adding that the people aren’t ready to be disappointed. “It is not your cup of tea. You are not up to the mark” Stalin said, recalling a popular comic scene in a Tamil movie to drive home the point that the people have decided to discard EPS.

Hence, in desperation the opposition leader is attempting to create a fake narrative by hurling abuses at the government and blaming the womenfolk that they have been fooled by the Rs 1000 per month scheme for women home makers, a flagship programme of the DMK government, the Chief Minister reasoned.

Charging EPS with spreading falsehood about the DMK government’s programmes, the Chief Minister said “It is indeed a publicity for he makes the public aware of what all services are available at the 10000 camps across the state in the ongoing public outreach ‘Ungaludan Stalin’ (Stalin With You) as well as other initiatives.”

“It is not the people who have been fooled, but only you by the BJP. Changing your vehicles four times to escape media scrutiny you knocked at the doors of Amit Shah in Delhi to protect your family from raids. And without any shame, you ask what is wrong in knocking at the doors of Shah,” he said adding, “People are confident that Stalin will never allow any foreign force into Tamil Nadu for his personal benefit but will prevent it.”

Turning his ire at the BJP, he asked what the Modi government had done in the last 10 years to retrieve Katchatheevu, the tiny barren islet in the strategic Palk Strait, ceded to Sri Lanka except raking it up for political mileage. It had no concern for the welfare of the fisherfolk and had not taken steps to put an end to the continuing arrest of Indian fishermen by the island nation’s navy, he added.