Pandiarajan defends OPS greeting BJP on win

He said, “I don’t see anything wrong in the greetings. Earlier, Amit Shah had spoken about ‘bellwethering’ a grand entry to South India. There is nothing wrong in using the word when the party has achieved its first victory in South India. Based on the greetings, Chidambaram cannot spread canards that we are going to have an alliance with the BJP. We can greet one who has increased his party’s tally from 40 to 104 seats and not the one who had gone down to 78.”

While Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s greeting was a plain congratulation, Panneerselvam had broken the formal method of sending wishes. The Deputy Chief Minister in his message to Amit Shah said, “On this cheerful occasion, I wish to express my warm greetings and felicitations for the significant victory of BJP in Karnataka Assembly elections, ‘bellwethering’ a grand entry to South India.”

The greetings from Panneerselvam drew flak in the social media and former Union Minister came down hard on the Deputy Chief Minister asking “Why did Panneerselvam term BJP’s performance as a grand entry into South India. Is he supporting imposition of Hindi or is he supporting action of protracting implementation of the Cauvery verdict? Or else, is he trying to nudge the BJP to unseat EPS and make him the Chief Minister.”

The warm greetings from Panneerselvam come after the AIADMK seems to be moving against the BJP on the Cauvery and NEET issues. The party organ ‘Namadhu Amma Puratchithalaivi’ had come out with three strong attacks on the BJP in a month. Barring the meetings at public functions, both Palaniswami and Panneerselvam had not met the Prime Minister after the RK Nagar by poll election results. The AIADMK leaders had arranged separate agitations and public meetings against the Centre on the Cauvery dispute too.