DMK calls out BJP for playing social justice card in Prez polls

CHENNAI: The DMK on wednesday lashed out at the BJP for playing the social justice card in the Presidential polls. The DMK also called out the ruling BJP’s nomination of Draupadi Murmu as NDA’s Presidential candidate as sheer tokenism.

Penning a sarcastic editorial titled “love for tribals” in its mouthpiece “Murasoli’ on Wednesday, the DMK said, “Social justice sentiment is overflowing in the BJP circles after the party nominated Draupadi Murmu, who hails from Tribal community.”

“Just like the way, election of a Muslim as the President had empowered Muslims in the country, election of a scheduled caste as the President had empowered scheduled castes in the country under the BJP regime, announcing a member of a tribal community for the Presidential election would also fetch similar benefits,” the sarcastically loaded DMK editorial said.

Quoting the statement of the Opposition’s joint presidential candidate Yaswant Sinha on the issue, the DMK borrowed the tweet of TRS IT wing, which criticized Murmu for not being able to get electricity supply for her native village till her nomination for the Presidential election, and said the BJP might have fielded Murmu to target the tribal community, who account for a chunk of the voters in poll bound Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

Recalling the amendment made to the 2006 Forest Act by the BJP regime in 2019, the Dravidian party referred to cases of eviction of tribals from their traditional forest settlements in recent years and said the BJP regime had imposed section 144 to prevent anyone from venturing into the forest. The BJP regime has only covered up the opposition of the tribals, instead of revoking its controversial law, the DMK said, “Under such circumstances, they claim to be saviours of tribes. They are even preaching social justice.”