Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to convene an inter-State council meeting could be seen only as political gimmick, BJP State president K. Annamalai said on Sunday.
Mr. Annamalai said Congress had never convened an inter-State council meeting and whereas Mr. Modi did it thrice in 2014.
Addressing a massive gathering, he said the Tamil Nadu government deliberately boycotted a number of meetings convened by the Centre. The State should have used those meetings to voice its concerns. Centre convened a meeting of the Education Secretaries, but the State Education Secretary did not attend it. GST Council meeting was held, but Finance Minister P.T.R. Palanivel Thiaga Rajan was absent. A meeting of Education Ministers was held, Anbil Mahesh Pooyamozhi did not take part in it, he said.
Mr. Stalin’s dream of becoming a Deputy Prime Minister would not materialise, he stated. He also ridiculed the claim of a ‘number one’ Chief Minister. Mr Annamalai said that Mr. Stalin was replicating BJP-led Central Government schemes. The State education policy would also be a replica of NEP.
Launching an attack on the Congress, he accused the party of instigating the youth against the Agnipath scheme in a bid to divert the attention from the probe against Rahul Gandhi in the national herald case. Mr. Annamalai praised late Congress leader K. Kamaraj for his governance and construction of dams and asked the DMK whether they had constructed dam or even de silted the waterbodies.
He also said the BJP would be able to return 25 candidates from Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.