With Tamil Nadu moving closer to a high-stakes Assembly election, AIADMK General Secretary and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday sharpened his campaign rhetoric against the ruling DMK government, accusing Chief Minister M K Stalin’s administration of widespread corruption, a collapse of law and order and failing to protect citizens.
Speaking at campaign rallies and in statements issued over the weekend and on Monday, Palaniswami sought to frame the coming election as a referendum on governance, citing crimes reported across the state and the recent death of a young man who had been in police custody.
Addressing a public meeting at Bhavani in Erode district on Sunday – his 193rd stop in the AIADMK’s ongoing “Makkalai Kaappom, Thamizhagathai Meetpom” tour – Palaniswami accused the DMK government of looting public funds and presiding over what he described as a deteriorating law and order situation.
“The DMK has looted it. There are no major schemes to show for it,” he said, alleging that despite collecting Rs 1,36,000 crore in additional revenue compared to the previous AIADMK government, the ruling party had also borrowed Rs 5 lakh crore without visible development outcomes.
Much of the speech focused on law and order. Palaniswami listed a series of crimes reported across Tamil Nadu in recent days, including a fatal road accident involving a car bearing a DMK flag in Chengalpattu, a brutal robbery in Coimbatore in which an elderly woman’s limbs were severed for jewellery, a sexual harassment allegation involving a policeman in Chennai’s Royapettah, and other violent incidents in Madurai, Kodungaiyur, Sivagangai and Nagercoil.
“Is this the kind of governance we need?” he asked. Palaniswami also referred to allegations of organ theft in hospitals, claiming that kidneys had been removed without consent in one case and that a patient who went to donate a kidney had his liver removed instead. “If you’ve been to a DMK hospital, get a scan done immediately,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience before adding, “Do we need a government that steals organs?”
The AIADMK leader also targeted the state’s finances and the government-run liquor retail network. He alleged that the DMK administration was collecting an illegal premium of Rs 10 per bottle at TASMAC outlets, claiming this amounted to Rs 15 crore a day, Rs 450 crore a month and Rs 5,400 crore a year.
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He mocked Chief Minister M K Stalin’s recent laptop distribution scheme for students. “If they had been distributed at the start of college, they would have been useful. What is the point of giving them when students are about to finish?” he asked.
Palaniswami also defended the AIADMK’s alliance with the BJP, displaying photographs of former chief minister M Karunanidhi with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and noting that the DMK itself had been part of the NDA in the past.
“When you ally with the BJP, it is a good party. When we do, it is communal?” he asked.
On Monday, Palaniswami intensified his criticism, citing what he described as a fresh wave of murders and violent crimes across the state.
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He referred to reports of an elderly man murdered near Uthangarai in Krishnagiri district and the sexual assault of the man’s wife, two murders in Trisoolam in Chennai, and the hacking to death of a farmer near Sankarankovil in Tenkasi district.
Launching a direct attack on Chief Minister Stalin, he said the government had remained silent despite the crimes. “For the past five years, has this puppet Chief Minister ever once spoken honestly about the collapse of law and order in Tamil Nadu?” he asked. “Under this regime… reality today is murders everywhere, murders all the time.”
The remarks came as the AIADMK also criticised the state government over the recent death of Akash Delison, a 26-year-old engineering graduate who died after being taken into police custody in Sivaganga district.
The AIADMK alleged that Delison, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community, had been brutally assaulted by the police after being picked up for questioning and that injuries were falsely attributed to a fall from a bridge while attempting to escape.
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Police officials, however, maintained that Delison was a history-sheeter wanted in connection with an assault case and that he had sustained injuries while trying to evade arrest.
According to a statement from the Director General of Police’s office, he had been treated at Sivaganga Medical College Hospital and later remanded to judicial custody before being shifted to the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai, where he died early on March 8 after experiencing breathing difficulties.
