AIADMK‘s general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Wednesday, July 5, 2023 indicated his party’s opposition to the move to introduce the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently said that India needed the UCC as the country could not run with the dual system of “separate laws for separate communities.”
When asked about the party’s stand on the UCC, Mr. Palaniswami told reporters at the party headquarters here, “Read our manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. We had stated our position clearly even then.” The manifesto, in the section dealing with the topic of secularism, had said that the AIADMK would urge the Union government “not to bring in” any amendment to the Constitution for UCC that would adversely affect the religious rights of minorities in the country.
Releasing the logo for the party’s conference to be held in Madurai on August 20, at the district secretaries meeting in Chennai on Wednesday, Mr. Palaniswami asserted that neither had the party suffered a split, nor had it disintegrated. “In the past one year, we faced several criticisms. The party got divided into three or four camps. The membership had gone down drastically.” Emphasising that the party under his leadership had now dispelled all the criticism, he claimed that over the past two-and-a-half months, the membership of the party had touched the 1.6-crore mark. He added, “There is no vacuum in the party.”
