Along with other senior leaders, Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS), the interim general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), and the leader of the opposition in Tamil Nadu travelled to the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday to express their concerns to governor R N Ravi about the state’s deteriorating law and order situation and to make accusations of corruption against the DMK, which is currently in power.
EPS alleged the “sole aim” of the ruling DMK government is “corruption, collection, and commission” besides failure to maintain law and order. He handed over an 18-page document to the governor. “He (governor) told us that he will read everything and inquire,” said EPS talking to reporters after the meeting.
Crime including murders has become a daily affair and ‘’all this was happening due to an inefficient puppet chief minister ruling the state’’, Palaniswami said.
On the Coimbatore blast, he said the October 23 Coimbatore car explosion, in which the alleged perpetrator was killed, could have been averted if the government acted in time.
Before the case was turned over to the National Investigation Agency, he charged Chief Minister M K Stalin with being unconcerned about it.
EPS said it is not only, “a failure of the state intelligence agency but also shows the incompetence of the state police.”
Meanwhile, Ravi’s removal as governor has been requested by legislators from the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, who accuse him of acting in an unlawful manner.
On November 9, DMK and its allies sent a letter to the president claiming that the governor was making anti-communal remarks. As of his appointment in September 2021, the governor has not taken any action on the 20 bills passed by the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly, according to the DMK.
On this, EPS opined the governor is functioning as he should be. “That is why the corrupt DMK is calling the governor a bad person,” EPS said. “As a responsible opposition, we have given the complaints to him. Only the governor can investigate it,” he added.
The riots that occurred in Kallakurichi in July after a school student committed suicide were another concern that the AIADMK raised in their complaint. EPS urged the governor to act after accusing the DMK of operating open-air drug and alcohol shops inside their command.
“While drugs were free-flowing, on the contrary medicines were running short in government hospitals. Every department is corrupt,” EPS alleged.
Former ministers and prominent figures C V Shanmugham, S P Velumani, D Jayakumar, as well as Natham R Viswanathan, Dindigul Srinivasan, and K P Munusamy, accompanied EPS.