Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin has refuted the Opposition AIADMK’s allegation ad said he went to Delhi and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure State’s rights.
Speaking at a wedding, he said he went to Delhi only to seek what was due to the State and not for any personal reasons as alleged by certain people.
‘Some people have alleged that I had gone there (Delhi) to save myself from some problems, out of fear. Let me make one thing very clear. I did not go there and fall at anyone’s feet seeking any favours for me’,
Stalin said, adding, ‘I went to Delhi and met the Prime Minister and put forward our State’s issues, met the respective Ministers and submitted memorandums and gave a voice to our State’s rights.’
‘Some people who are unable to digest this are making such allegations’, he said in an apparent reference to remarks made by the the Opposition AIADMK.
AIADMK joint coordinator and Leader of Opposition in Tamilnadu Assembly Edappadi K Palaniswami had recently said Stalin had gone to New Delhi to ‘fall at the feet of Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to spare him and his family from the controversy around their recent family trip to Dubai under the pretext of an official visit’.
Wondering if it had anything to do with his recent trip to Dubai, Palaniswami mocked the DMK’s change in stance and referred to the party’s black balloon protest.
‘Then, the DMK members stooped to a low level in criticising the Prime Minister. People now say that Stalin undertook the Delhi visit with the hope that the Prime Minister, forgetting the past, will save him and his family,’ Palaniswami said in a statement here.
Palaniswami recalled the visit of Stalin’s father M Karunanidhi to New Delhi to meet then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and patch up with her 43 years ago.
Palaniswami argued that Modi would not get ‘carried away’ by Stalin’s ‘drama’, unlike Indira Gandhi.