Madurai district. Minister Vanniarasu, who participated in the event to issue house site pattas to 112 people from the Theerthakadu area, met reporters at the District Collector’s office. Speaking then, he said, “Despite a court order, pattas were not issued for the past 40 years, but now we have issued them. Pattas still need to be issued to another 300 people. The pattas that were already issued in various places across Tamil Nadu are, as Vadivelu says, just like, ‘There is a receipt, but the item is nowhere to be found.’”
There is a plan in place to help petitioners obtain patta. Even after 80 years in an independent nation, it is the sons of the soil, the indigenous people, who still stand with outstretched hands for land pattas; not the elite...
A government capable of resolving this has come to power. In the government led by Joseph Vijay, we ourselves are doing this. The place of making demands has changed; we have come to the place where those demands are fulfilled. This is the important reversal.
I do not wish to speak about the problems in the previous administration. As the honorable one said, action before words—that is my word.
This is proof that good governance is taking place in Tamil Nadu, that a people’s government is in power. We are identifying and addressing the problems of the grassroots people.
Law and order issues, price hikes, law and order problems are issues that exist at all times. We have fought for that. Opposition parties that fight against law and order problems should come and guide us on how the government should function... We can do that; but spreading slander along the way is unacceptable. We are moving in a people-oriented direction; there is no need to divert this.
In the Vengaivayal issue, the law and order issue, the massacres that took place in the southern districts, and in all issues, including the recent Kavin murder, we stood on the same ground and fought for four days.
No one needs to give us any advice... Whatever issues exist today, we point them out wherever there is disagreement. Since we are in the cabinet, we speak directly to the Chief Minister. There is no need to protest outside.
The chargesheet against those accused in the Kavin murder case was quashed. When his mother was leading a protest against it, we immediately went and told the Chief Minister directly that a review petition should be filed in this matter. Today, a review petition has been filed," he said.
In response to a question about Minister Jagadeeswari’s speech, he said, “She spoke only in our village. She did not speak as a minister; she said she was speaking as a mother, and then spoke; she spoke from a mother’s perspective.”
Regarding the opposition parties’ claim that the Chief Minister is going only to the constituencies where by-elections are being held, he said, “They will go after the Chief Minister has gone. If there is an allegation that these are election-related activities, then they should not go to this constituency. They will go... the election work has begun.
If the Chief Minister has gone to Viralimalai, it means he is carrying out welfare schemes for the people beyond the by-election. My view is that the by-election has nothing to do with that."
In response to the opposition’s question about whether TVK has drawn close to the BJP, “When the BJP government said that Vande Mataram must be sung, it was the TVK government that passed a resolution saying that only Tamil Thai Vazhthu should be sung in Tamil Nadu. At a time when no one across the country was even hesitant to pass resolutions, it was the TVK government that first passed a resolution saying that only Tamil Thai Vazhthu should be sung.
No state has done this against Vande Mataram. It was in Tamil Nadu, in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, that the first resolution in India against the Waqf Board amendment and FCRA was brought forward.
If they are working together with the BJP, then why would they bring a resolution against the two most important laws introduced by the BJP?
The protest against the SIR is taking place in Delhi. The DMK did not participate in that protest. In the past, the DMK, which had worked together with the INDIA alliance and led the protest, did not even protest separately, even if it did not join the INDIA alliance in the struggle. Can they be accused of working with the BJP for that?"
In response to the question about the beef scheme in hostels, “When students inspected the hostel regarding the beef issue, they made a request. We only said that we would inform the Chief Minister and consider it. This was twisted into malicious propaganda claiming that beef would be served; that is not true. RSS is behind this. The Sanatana group is doing this work of politicizing food. Do not engage in efforts to divert the purpose. This is a government that functions with students’ welfare in mind.”
In response to the question about saying that the AIADMK gives the TVK government a zero score, he said, “Edappadi Palaniswami should make sure that AIADMK does not become zero; it is gradually melting away one by one.
The AIADMK is a party that can speak up for state rights, and that party should not be destroyed... it should not become zero... it should become a plus, not zero, and I am giving that blessing.”
In response to the question about Seeman being a common candidate, “Seeman himself says he is the common candidate. He speaks as if he were saying, ‘I am the next Chief Minister’; no one has proposed him, he is aspiring for it. The very Dravidian ideology he once opposed, saying, ‘We will break the Dravidian fortress with the Brahmin crowbar,’ he has now thrown that crowbar aside and picked up the Dravidian crowbar to set out to break the Tamil nationalist fortress.”
No one can be as opportunistic and survival-driven in politics as Seeman. He started a party after 2009. He began by saying that the Congress, which carried out the ethnic massacre, and the three parties that collaborated with Congress in the genocide—the DMK and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal—were traitors. We put forward Dravidian ideas based on the revolutionary Ambedkar-Periyar ideology; that is our approach.
Isn’t it opportunism to speak so disgracefully against this kind of Dravidian ideology and then come and talk now? If you are abandoning the principles you held for the sake of an MLA post, what could be more opportunistic than that? It would be good if diaspora Tamils at least now understood that VCK is genuinely active in the field of Tamil nationalist politics.
People like Seeman are standing there with outstretched hands and plates, completely begging for Dravidian biryani. He says, “Valor that does not fall... honor that does not kneel,” and yet he is lying there on his knees. Seeman is nothing but an opportunist who is kneeling before Dravidianism. The people of Tamil Nadu will never accept him. That is the message the Ambasamudram constituency can convey."