AIADMK’s alliance with BJP to continue for 2024 polls: Palaniswami

CHENNAI: AIADMK's interim general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami said on Friday that AIADMK's alliance with BJP will continue for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Claiming the AIADMK's relationship with the BJP had been cordial, he said that the parties would fight the 2024 polls together.

Talking to reporters in Tirunelveli after campaigning for his party's candidate in the Erode East Assembly by-poll, he played down the controversies about AIADMK and BJP leaders attacking each other on social media.

The AIADMK leader said that each leader would want their party to grow, unlike in the ruling Secular Progressive Alliance, where the partners focused more on the DMK's growth.

The former chief minister also remarked that it was the AIADMK that had helped so many other parties and not the other way around.

The by-poll in Erode East is scheduled on February 27.

Palaniswami said that he would campaign for the candidate again on February 24 and 25.

Exuding confidence that AIADMK will win the by-election, he said the victory will resound in Lok Sabha polls as well.

He alleged that the DMK government had done nothing for the people of Erode East. He said that Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's government had not even ensured proper drinking water for the constituency's residents in its 21-month tenure.

He claimed that when AIADMK was in power, it had taken up an exclusive integrated drinking water project at a cost of Rs 484 crore for Erode, from the Cauvery river.

After the trial runs, when the scheme was to be commissioned, the general elections were announced in May 2021.

The AIADMK leader said wherever DMK leaders were campaigning, the people were questioning them.

He alleged that the law and order had deteriorated in the state due to the inefficiency of the DMK government.

"The drug menace is rife across the state; we see the lives of youngsters and students getting spoiled in front of our eyes," he added.

He slammed the chief minister for not fulfilling poll promises but instead building a memorial and a library in the name of his father.

He pointed out that many environmentalists, activists and fishermen have opposed the government's decision to construct a pen statue in the sea.

"We are not against the pen statue but we are asking the government to construct it near the memorial and not in the sea," he said, adding that the government need not spend Rs 81 crore on that. The government can construct it with Rs 2 crore and use the remaining money to distribute free pens to students, he said.