Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin on Friday warned that if the BJP was voted to power again, the benefits of reservation available to all classes, including the BCs, the MBCs, the SCs and the STs, would be lost forever.
Speaking at a public meeting to canvas votes for VCK candidate D. Ravikumar (Villupuram) and the Congress’s M.K. Vishnu Prasad (Cuddalore), he said that the benefits of reservation were realised after much struggle, and they had helped people climb up the social ladder and land respectable jobs.
Mr. Stalin alleged that the OBCs, the SCs and the STs had been denied the full benefit of reservation ever since the BJP came to power. Less than 3% of the secretaries posted at the Centre belonged to the BCs, while there was hardly anyone from the OBCs and the STs in Assistant Professor and higher posts. People should think about this, he said.
“The BJP is the biggest threat to reservation and social justice. We have to fight for reservation since it is our right. If the BJP is voted to power again, there won’t be any reservation and the people will be pushed backwards by 100 years,” he said.
Mr. Stalin alleged that the BJP was trying to prevent the oppressed classes from climbing up the social ladder. The BJP will never accept the BCs, the SCs/STs and the MBCs coming up in life. Hence, the INDIA bloc demanded a separate caste census, and this had been promised by the Congress in its manifesto, he said.
Hitting out at the PMK over its “opportunistic alliance” with the BJP, Mr. Stalin reminded the party that it was the DMK that withdrew the cases filed against those who had fought during the Vanniyar agitation.
It was only after the DMK came to power that then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi invited PMK leader S. Ramadoss and issued orders for classifying Vanniyars and other castes as “Most Backward Community”, he said.
Accusing the PMK of bearing the palanquin of the BJP, Mr. Stalin said that it was amusing that the PMK had aligned with a party that systematically crushed social justice by whittling away reservation.
He further alleged that AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami had bartered not only the State’s rights but also the party with the BJP.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi ruined the country, Mr. Palaniswami ruined the State during the 10-year AIADMK rule, he alleged.
“This is the land of social reformer Periyar, and the BJP will never be able to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, irrespective of how many times Mr. Modi visits the State,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that he never merely announced schemes, but ensured that they were implemented and reached the beneficiaries. “The DMK’s governance is a golden era in the State,” he said.
