Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Thursday blamed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members from “north Indian” states for intentionally spreading rumours and fake videos that migrant workers were attacked in the southern state, and alleged that these were done the very next day after he spoke about the need for a united national-level alliance against the BJP.
“You can understand the plot behind the fake news spreaders if you noticed that these were done the very next day after I spoke about the need for a united national-level alliance against the BJP,” Stalin said, responding to a series of questions under the programme ‘Ungalil Oruvan’ (one amongst you), where he answered questions from the public in a recorded video.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader was referring to his 70th birthday on March 1 when opposition party leaders – Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, Samajwadi Party’ Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejasvi Yadav – gathered in Chennai and pledged to fight together to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Stalin had then said that talks of a ‘Third Front’ are ‘pointless’ and parties opposed to the BJP must shed their differences and fight together, which was accepted by the leaders on the stage.
{{/usCountry}}Stalin had then said that talks of a ‘Third Front’ are ‘pointless’ and parties opposed to the BJP must shed their differences and fight together, which was accepted by the leaders on the stage.
{{/usCountry}}“In Tamil Nadu, people from various states have been living here for a long period,” Stalin said responding to videos on migrant workers being attacked in the state.
“For the past few years, many have been coming to Tamil Nadu in search of employment. They have had no problems in any place In Tamil Nadu. But a few people created fake videos and spread false news. BJP members from north Indian states did this intentionally,” he said.
Stalin said that he had immediately enquired if migrant workers were being attacked and found it was false and he spoke to his counterpart in Bihar, Nitish Kumar and assured him that they were safe.
Tamil Nadu DGP Sylendra Babu issued clarifications and he told HT that 11 first information reports (FIRs) were filed against those spreading rumours and fake videos. This includes cases against Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai, the Twitter handle of the BJP’s Bihar unit @BJP4Bihar, BJP spokesperson Prashant Umrao and Dainik Bhaskar newspaper’s editor, Mohammed Tanveer, OpIndia webportal’s chief executive officer (CEO) Rahul Roushan and editor Nupur Sharma.
A senior bureaucrat, who did not wish to be named, told HT that Umrao from Uttar Pradesh has been granted anticipatory bail and a transit to report to a court in Chennai before March 20.