AIADMK's Rs 10,000 or DMK's Rs 5,000 - what will Tamil Nadu vote for?

Chennai (PTI): AIADMK’s poll promise of Rs 10,000 relief for families to overcome economic hardship caused by DMK regime will be a ‘superhit’ among people and not the Rs 5,000 provided by Chief Minister M K Stalin fearing defeat at the hustings, AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami claimed.

Noting that his gesture of providing one-time ex-gratia to people to mitigate their hardship “imposed” by the DMK government through inflation and increasing taxes, was well received by the people, Palaniswami, the AIADMK general secretary, said people were beginning to experience the problems due to economic hardship.

“I announced Rs 10,000 to help the people of Tamil Nadu facing untold economic hardships due to various taxes and fee hikes by the M K Stalin regime since the last five years… My announcement has become a superhit among the people. People are waiting for the elections to vote the AIADMK to power,” the former Chief Minister said.

The people of the state were getting geared up to remove the “anti-people DMK regime”, he said, addressing meetings at Maduravoyal and Poonthamalli Assembly constituencies here on Wednesday night as part of his “Makkalai Kaapom, Tamilagathai Meetpom” (Save people, redeem Tamil Nadu) campaign.

Palaniswami alleged that Stalin had disbursed Rs 5,000 to women due to fear of defeat at the hustings and that he made “baseless allegation” of an attempt to thwart the DMK ruling dispensation from disbursing the monthly grant of Rs 1,000 to women beneficiaries of a government scheme for the next three months, citing upcoming Assembly election.

Also, the Chief Minister had included a component of “summer grant” of Rs 2,000 in the Rs 5,000 sum directly credited into the bank accounts of women beneficiaries, as if summer came only before the Assembly election, Palaniswami said.

Referring to the Chief Minister’s earlier remark at a government event that “two zeros add up to a zero” targeting the AIADMK's performance at the election, Palaniswami said “Stalin seems to be expressing his position.” “People will give zero to the DMK-led alliance in the upcoming election,” the AIADMK chief said.