DMK restricts poll rhetoric to state rights, fund devolution against BJP

CHENNAI: Unfazed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi led by BJP's criticism of his party and the Congress on the vexed Katchatheevu issue, the DMK led by Chief Minister M K Stalin has restricted most of the campaign dealing on subjects like state rights, mainly controversies surrounding the devolution of taxes and allocation of funds for projects in Tamil Nadu by the union government.

Stalin, who leads the charge against the BJP from the front, has been content with questioning the alleged under-allocation of GST dues to the state. Rally after rally, the Chief Minister has slammed Modi's government for not releasing 'promised' funds for Chennai Metro Rail phase-II. Stalin's campaign rhetoric is also fraught with questions to the union government on not allocating flood relief assistance to Tamil Nadu.

The DMK president was equally vocal in raking up the alleged abuse of central agencies like ED, CBI and IT against the opposition and exploitation of such agencies in mopping up 'donations' through electoral bonds.

Sparing a good portion of his speech for the achievements of his three-year-old regime, Stalin also does not fail to highlight the arrest of Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal to gain one-upmanship over the BJP in the campaign trail.

The rest of the DMK leaders and even a few allies rightly take cue from the CM and fire broadsides at the BJP in the campaign.

None did it better than state sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin who conferred the title "Mr 29 Paisa" on the PM to demonstrate the alleged under-allocation of GST tax share from the Central exchequer.

While responding to the BJP's charges on the Katchatheevu, Stalin who questions the amount of schemes implemented by the Modi regime in Tamil Nadu, also dedicates time to raise the CAA-NRC issues in his campaign.

Regarding the AIADMK led by Edappadi K Palaniswami, the Chief Minister is content with alluding to the tacit understanding between the two former allies.

Aptly responding to his bete noire, Leader of Opposition Palaniswami takes a swipe at the 38 sitting INDIA bloc MPs for not getting their job done in the last five years.

While questioning the performance of the incumbent INDIA MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha, the LoP dedicated most of his campaign time to questioning the performance of the Stalin regime. So much so that state BJP president K Annamalai summed up to a certain degree of correctness that the DMK and AIADMK were campaigning as if the April 19 polls were for the State Assembly and the local bodies, respectively.

EPS trained his guns at the DMK mostly on the nepotism front besides responding on a daily basis to minister Udhayanidhi, both of whom engaged in a statement war over who 'sinned' by warming up to the PM on dais in the recent years.

Starkly different from them was Annamalai who has found a newfound love for Katchatheevu. The BJP has been going gung ho over the Katchatheevu issue, of course after substantially raking up the nepotism and corruption issues against the DMK.

Annamalai and company have been channelizing their energy on merely targeting the DMK, while returning the favors to the AIADMK by largely avoiding any vigorous critique of EPS.