AIADMK co-coordinator and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Saturday asked the DMK government what it had achieved in the last 10 months by emphaisising on the ‘Dravidian model’.
“The government has declared open projects which were completed when the AIADMK was in power. Likewise, it has laid foundation for projects for which the AIADMK government had issued GOs and allocated funds. Is this the Dravidian model,” he asked, talking to journalists outside the Assembly here.
He pointed out that when his party was in power, the State had received numerous national awards. “When Puratchi Thalaivar [AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran] was there [as Chief Minister], there was the Puratchi Thalaivar model. When Puratchi Thalaivi Amma [Jayalalithaa] was there, there was the Amma model. After the demise of Amma, we had followed the Tamil Nadu model, combining the features of the two models, and provided good governance.”
Dismissing the agriculture budget as an “illusory exercise”, Mr. Palaniswami said it was a mere aggregation of all that had been provided for by various departments. “It is only a drama that has been enacted,” he said, asserting that the budget did not address many issues, including compensation to farmers affected by the southwest monsoon last year.
The former Chief Minister accused the DMK government of having “scrapped” marriage assistance schemes just because the AIADMK government had launched them. He also criticised the government for having wound up the Amma scooter scheme.
