AIADMK leaders hit back at BJP leaders for calling Jayalalithaa Hindutva leader

CHENNAI: The AIADMK leaders and functionaries strongly condemned BJP leaders for trying to paint former CM J Jayalalithaa with communal colour by calling her as a "great Hindutva leader".

The AIADMK functionaries said their leader, Jayalalithaa, was a strong believer but not a "religious fanatic" like leaders and functionaries of the saffron party and its ideological parent RSS, which thrive on communal and religious hatred.

The AIADMK functionaries in Sivagangai exhibited their strong protest against state BJP chief K Annamalai and resorted to a poster campaign demanding an open apology for defaming their leader - J Jayalalithaa.

The poster carried the pictures of Jayalalithaa attending Christmas, and Ramzan fests to convey that she was a secular leader followed by C N Annadurai's "Ondre Kulam and Oruvane Devan".

Former BJP's TN unit presidents Tamilisai Soundararajan and L Murugan have also endorsed the statement of Annamalai and said that Jayalalithaa was a Hindutva leader, drawing sharp criticism from rang and files of the rank and file of their former ally and the prime Opposition party in the state.

"We prefer not to respond to elements that lack basic political understanding and are especially against Constitutional and secularism, " senior AIADMK leader and former minister C Ponnaiyan said, while party spokesperson D Jayakumar said that BJP leaders were exposing their weakness and dearth of leaders of their own.

"Why are they not talking about their leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani?, " he asked, while it may be recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke high about the former CMs and AIADMK leaders M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa during his election campaigns in the state.

Recalling Jayalalithaa's interview to a news channel, Jayakumar said that the AIADMK was the Dravidian party and it followed the ideology of Dravidian icon Anna (C N Annadurai), who embraced people from all sections of the society and beliefs.

"The BJP leaders' attempt (to appropriate our leaders (M G Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa), will backfire for them and they will be exposed, " he said and continued that the BJP leaders remarks divulge their immature and low political understanding and they were indulging in "cheap politics".

Several functionaries and leaders expressed that they were unwilling to engage with Annamalai's remark loaded with divisiveness and lack of "political decency".

"We prefer not to give importance to political novices who have zero understanding of the Dravidian movement and its ideology that entrenched the state, " said a young leader of the AIADMK.