Taken aback by the aggressive posture of Hindutwa elements in the BJP and the Sangh Parivar that the DMK is an anti-Hindu organisation, party chief MK Stalin on Monday made a strategic change in his approach to religions, especially the Hinduism.
“There is an attempt by certain political and social groupings to portray the DMK as an enemy of the Hindus. But this is absolutely wrong as we are not against any religions. We, in DMK, follow what the party founders C N Annadurai and my late father Kalaignar (M Karunanidhi) had taught us. They told us to follow the dictum of one God and one community. This is what we are doing even today,” declared the DMK leader while campaigning in Vellore district.
Stalin’s declaration comes at a time when the social media is agog with his speech made at Tiruchi where he declared that Sanatana Dharma was the biggest threat faced by the country than that from Pakistan and China. The speech has been widely reported and this has come as a setback to the Dravidian major which was way ahead of the AIADMK-led alliance in the campaign front.
The DMK chief’s ire at Vellore was directed more towards the PMK, which he alleged, cheated the DMK. “It was because of the intervention and support extended by Kalaignar in 2004 that Anbumani Ramadoss, son of PMK founder Ramadoss was included in the Union Cabinet as Minister of health. Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi were against including Anbumani in the Cabinet,” claimed Stalin.
Meanwhile, the DMK fielded Udhayanidhi Stalin, son of M K Stalin to campaign against Anbumani Ramadoss, the NDA candidate contesting at Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency. In a no-bar holds attack on Anbumani, the scion of the DMK family asked the people of Dharmapuri not to believe the promises made by the former as he has failed in implementing any of the offers he had made in 2014.
“He has not visited the constituency regularly. Though he had promised to resolve the water crisis in the district, the situation continues to remain the same,” charged the film actor son of Stalin.
Anbumani is facing challenge from the DMK’s DNV Senthil Kumar at Dharmapuri who hails from a leading Vanniyar family of the district. Though the DMK has declared that it was against caste and religion, the party has been careful in selecting and fielding candidates from the dominant community in the constituencies from which the party is contesting.