Udhayanidhi Stalin mocks at Palaniswami, alleges BJP swallowing AIADMK

Chennai, Sep 10 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Wednesday alleged that the BJP was swallowing the AIADMK by breaking it up into factions.

The DMK's youth wing chief, addressing a party meeting at Chengelpet near here, mocked at Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami's 'Protect people, retrieve Tamil Nadu' campaign and asked him to first retrieve the AIADMK from the BJP.

Udhayanidhi said, when two DMK members meet, they have friendly conversations on party and family matters.

However, if two AIADMK workers meet, they do not even talk and just stare at each other as the one suspects the other of betrayal.

The AIADMK is split into several factions like "OPS (O Panneeselvam) faction, EPS (Edappadi K Palaniswami, the party chief) faction, Sasikala camp (confidante of late party supremo J Jayalalithaa), and the newly created Sengottaiyan faction." An ordinary AIADMK worker has a confusion about which group the other worker belongs to.

"However, today the AIADMK member has taken a decision and they think that notwithstanding affiliation, all factions are today under the umbrella of BJP," Udhayanidhi alleged, apparently ridiculing the AIADMK.

Mocking at Palaniswami for his 'Retrieve Tamil Nadu campaign,' the DMK leader said Palaniswami has to first retrieve AIADMK from the BJP, as the party was mortgaged after party matriarch J Jayalalaithaa's death in 2016.

Many are trying to release the party from the clutches of the Saffron party, and Palaniswami is determined that only he would retrieve the party.

Udhayanidhi said: "Only you can do it, we have the confidence that you will do it, the BJP is slicing the AIADMK into pieces and swallowing it and in such a situation, he (Palaniswami) is criticising our alliance and says that the DMK will swallow its alliance parties. The DMK-led alliance is not merely an electoral alliance, it is an alliance based on ideology." The DMK-led alliance is robust for years together, and it could not be even "touched by others", and several other outfits are waiting to join the alliance as people gave only victory to his party-led alliance.

Allies have deserted the AIADMK-BJP NDA alliance, and when Palaniswami returns after completing his campaign, he may return alone and it is not sure even if his driver would be with him or not, Udhayanidhi mocked at Palaniswami. PTI VGN VGN ROH