"What was the point in trying to stop this march?": BJP leader blasts DMK govt

CHENNAI: BJP leader and the party's Tamil Nadu vice president, Narayanan Thirupathy, on Tuesday hit out at the DMK government over its alleged bid to stall an RSS march in the state.

On the Madras High Court allowing the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) to hold a route march of its cadre in Tamil Nadu on October 22 and 29, Thirupathy told ANI on Tuesday, "The Madras High Court has directed the state government to allow RSS route march. It is a socio-cultural and not a political event. What was the point in trying to stop this march? It only shows the motivations of this government. They (DMK government) are afraid of the RSS as it is making serious inroads in the state. The Madras High Court has pulled up this government repeatedly for its position on this route march. Moving the HC to stall the march accomplished nothing more than wasting the court's time."

While allowing the RSS to hold the march, the court also directed the state police to give necessary clearances to the saffron outfit five days ahead of the scheduled event.

"The government has said there may be some rowdies and miscreants in the rally. The onus is on the government and the police administration to identify such elements and act against them. They kept silent on such elements for a year and are now citing them as an excuse to stop the march. This is condemnable," he added.

Also taking a swipe at INDIA, he said there were many PM aspirants in the Opposition bloc. "We are not bothered who will be their PM candidate. It's for our media to speculate on and report. They seem to have many PM aspirants -- Mamta Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, MK Stalin and others," the BJP leader said.

He said the BJP's state unit has been preparing for next year's Lok Sabha polls since 2020-21, adding that he was hopeful that the welfarist pursuits and initiatives of the Centre under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will find favour with the people.

"We have been preparing for the general elections since 2020-21. We are very strongly placed in terms of our organsational presence in the state. We have done a lot of work on the ground.

PM Modi's schemes are finding favour with the people here and our state president Annamalai is going to every corner of the state to spread the word on the Centre's policies and welfarist efforts," Thirupathy said.