DMK MP A Raja on Monday termed Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s criticism of the Stalin government in Tamil Nadu as a bundle of lies laced with a divisive agenda and deplorable deception which could be proven false with evidence.

“Every line of his speech (in Madurai on Sunday) can be proven false with evidence,” he told the media and accused the BJP stalwart of attempting to disrupt peace and tranquillity in the state in the vain hope to gain political mileage.

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The DMK had fielded Raja, a former Union Minister and the Dalit face of the party, to take on Shah, who had launched a tirade against the Stalin government at the BJP core-committee meeting in Madurai and asserted that the NDA will dethrone the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the TMC in West Bengal.

Debunking the claims of Shah on enhanced funding to the state from the Union Government, Raja, a former Union Minister in the then UPA government, compared the allocation of the present BJP-led government with that of the UPA era under Dr Manmohan Singh.

Despite a four-fold rise in direct tax revenue, the allocation to Tamil Nadu is significantly lower and not commensurate, he pointed out and charged the Union Government with stalling development projects by either denying or delaying funds. The long pending AIIMS hospital in Madurai was cited for instance.

On Amit Shah’s claim that the DMK is afraid of the BJP strongman, the DMK leader said it was the reverse as the saffron party is rattled at the DMK retaining ground.

“Why should the DMK be afraid of Amit Shah. It is the BJP which is rattled and that is why the Home Minister has to visit Tamil Nadu,” he quipped. Responding to Shah’s charge that the Stalin government had not fulfilled the poll promises, Raja reeled out statistics and said a majority of the promises made in the DMK’s election manifesto have been implemented. The only one pending is the commitment made to Government Employees for which the Chief Minister has constituted a committee to study the issue, he added.

The DMK leader questioned the BJPs studied silence on the issue of Delimitation of parliamentary constituencies and asked why the new parliament House had a seating capacity for over 800 seats. Earlier, on Sunday DMK MPs, Dayanidhi Maran and Thamizhachi Thangapandian had demanded that Shah make a commitment to declare in Parliament that Tamil Nadu and other states which have successfully carried out population control measures will not be penalised in the delimitation process.