E-Paper
Have no issues with Tamil Nadu BJP chief, says EPS after meeting with Shah
“There is no problem with Tamil Nadu BJP chief,” says AIADMK general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) after the joint meeting with Amit Shah.
Amid a strained relationship between AIADMK general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) and BJP Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai, their joint meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah and the national BJP president JP Nadda in Delhi on Wednesday night has ensured peace between the allies.
“There is no problem between us and the BJP leader Annamalai. How else did he campaign for us in the Erode east by-election? Media is scheming and asking us questions,” Palaniswami (EPS) told reporters in Delhi. This statement is vastly different from when he earlier told reporters on April 15 in Tamil Nadu not to ask him questions about Annamalai and that he would only respond to questions about mature leaders. On April 23, EPS said that the AIADMK would discuss alliance matters only with the central leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah and Nadda and not the state leadership.
The seating arrangement from the meeting was also suggestive that the two parties must work together. With Annamalai and EPS seated facing each other, Shah-Nadda, seemed to indicate that the AIADMK will also have to deal with the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit.
Both parties agreed to continue the alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to fight against DMK, said an AIADMK leader who did not wish to be named and was present in the meeting. The EPS-led delegation’s meeting with Shah and Nadda is significant as it is the first after the Election Commission of India (ECI) recognised EPS as AIADMK’s general secretary following a prolonged legal tussle with expelled leader O Panneerselvam (OPS). EPS was accompanied by senior leader KP Munusamy, P Thangamani, CV Shunmugham, D Jayakumar and SP Velumani.
EPS also said that he urged the Union home minister to order a probe into the two-audio clips released by the BJP. Annamalai has claimed the voice to be that of Tamil Nadu finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan accusing chief minister MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin and son-in-law V Sabareesan of allegedly amassing ₹30,000 crore in a year.
“Why has Stalin not responded when there has been an accusation against his son and son-in-law? That raises more doubts,” said EPS. “ ₹30,000 crore isn’t a small issue. It’s not a state problem but a national concern. We have urged the union minister to probe it. The truth has to come out. He (Shah) said that the issue has come to his notice,” he added.
Finance minister Rajan on Wednesday showed deep fake videos of former American presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama and ex-Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari as examples to dismiss the audio clips as fabricated. “I strongly and specifically deny having said to any individual personally or on the phone at any point in time, of what is contained in the audio clip being circulated since yesterday; the source of which nobody accepts ownership for,” Rajan had said.
“The state president of the BJP has descended to posting an audio of somebody telling nobody about some others…Therefore, such fabricated audios are being generated in a vain attempt to cast aspersions on them (Udhayanidhi and Sabareesan)... This is a desperate attempt by a blackmail gang to achieve their political ambitions by creating a rift between me and chief minister MK stalin and his family. Such cowardly attempts will never succeed,” the state finance minister added.
