Taking credit for the implementation of the Magalir Urimai Thogai scheme that provides financial assistance of ₹1,000 per month to women heads of families, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, said that it was only after his party had exerted continuous pressure on the DMK government that the scheme mplemented in the State, 27 months after the DMK came to power.
Addressing functionaries of the Edappadi Assembly constituency for the Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Palaniswami said the narrative of the DMK government over the monthly basic income scheme was false. “How did they give it? I spoke about this in the Assembly several times, as well as in the party’s general body meeting, and pressured the government to implement the scheme,” he said and went on to take credit “for implementing the scheme,”.
Mr. Palaniswami who was campaigning for the AIADMK’s Salem candidate, P. Vignesh, also claimed that DMK cadre were issuing threats, stating that the monthly assistance to women would be stopped if women did not give them permission to draw/paint election advertisements on the walls of their houses. “We won’t allow the scheme to be stopped,” he said.
Mr. Palaniswami said the DMK had fulfilled less than 10% of its poll promises, and its only achievements were in stopping the schemes introduced by the AIADMK government. “They did not fulfill their promises and stopped our schemes. This is the achievement in three years of the ‘Dravidian Model’ of governance,” he said. He said the scheme to divert surplus water from Mettur dam to refill 100 water bodies in the region was stopped by the DMK government and pointed out that due to prevailing severe drought conditions, there may now be a shortage of water for drinking and farming. “If they had completed the scheme in one year, all the water bodies could have been filled up now,” he said.
Without naming T.M. Selvaganapathi, the DMK candidate for the Salem Parliamentary constituency, Mr Palanisamy charged, “He left the AIADMK and is the Opposition candidate now. The AIADMK cadre worked hard for his victory in Tiruchengodu in 1991 and former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa made him a Minister”. The leader said, “Since the DMK has no candidates to contest in the polls, they are poaching people from the AIADMK.”
