Self-respecting Tamils will never allow the state to be ruled from Delhi: Chief Minister Stalin

Charging the Modi government with making persistent attempts to destroy and bury the rich heritage and antiquity of Tamil, Chief Minister and ruling DMK president MK Stalin on Wednesday asserted that Tamils, priding in their self-respect, will never allow the state to be ruled from Delhi.

Addressing an official function at Salem after inaugurating completed projects and laying foundation stones for new projects worth Rs 1,649.18 crore, the Chief Minister launched a frontal attack on the Modi government, accusing it of deliberately nullifying the report on the excavations at Keezhadi and that on the antiquity of iron, which declares that the Iron Age commenced from Tamil Nadu.

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“Union Minister Shekhawat asking for more scientific validation of the artefacts unearthed at Keezhadi amounts to discrediting the antiquity of Madurai. He has demanded that the report, compiled after obtaining necessary scientific data, be reworked. We announced the antiquity of iron in Tamil Nadu after conducting tests at globally reputed laboratories and released the report. Leave alone congratulating it, have they (the BJP-led Union government) ever uttered a word acknowledging it? Instead, they are bent on destroying and burying the antiquity of the Tamils,” he fumed.

He then slammed AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) for lacking the courage to raise these issues, fearing the BJP’s wrath. “Having pledged the party to safeguard selfish, vested interests, how can he speak? The AIADMK-BJP alliance personifies all that is against the Tamils, the Tamil race, and Tamil culture by disregarding Tamil Nadu. And the people of Tamil Nadu will continue to ignore them. For they are very much aware and will not accept you, and cannot be cheated anymore. Priding in self-respect, we Tamils will never allow the state to be ruled from Delhi,” Stalin said.

The Chief Minister also took to task Union Home Minister and BJP strongman Amit Shah, asking him to mention a single project that the BJP had brought to Tamil Nadu despite Modi in power for 11 years. “Hon’ble Shah, during your Madurai visit, have you visited the AIIMS Hospital which was announced in the Union Budget 11 years ago? Is it a space research centre that has been under construction for 10 years? Had funds been allotted, the AIIMS would have been completed in two years. And you are criticising us. The DMK government had built the ultra-modern Kalaignar Centenary Library, Jallikattu complex, and the Keezhadi museum in and around Madurai in the last four years,” he said, adding that this is the difference that distinguishes the Dravidian model from the BJP model.