People’s reception gives us confidence that we will win with a majority, says TN CM Palaniswami

AIADMK co-coordinator and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, who’s in search of a mandate for his authorities’s efficiency on this 12 months’s Assembly elections, is assured that folks would return his occasion to energy for a third straight time.

When you assumed cost as Chief Minister in February 2017, you have been seen because the hand-picked candidate of V.K. Sasikala, who was perceived to be very unpopular. Were you assured then that your tenure would final its time period and you’ll lead your occasion within the 2021 Assembly election?

You know the form of disaster state of affairs that prevailed then. In that state of affairs, a majority of MLAs most well-liked me and so I turned Chief Minister. All the ministers and MLAs knew that [in the preceding] three-and-half years Honorable Amma (Jayalalithaa) had good religion in me. They have been conscious that I knew concerning the occasion affairs effectively. From the time I first received an election on the ‘rooster’ image [AIADMK-Jayalalithaa faction] in 1989 to Amma’s final day, I used to be loyal to her and the occasion, by no means giving any room for misery. I had gone to jail on seven events for collaborating in occasion protests. Even when my constituency [Edappadi] was allotted to an ally [PMK in 2001] and Amma provided me a totally different seat, I refused it and labored for the victory of the alliance candidate. I used to be at all times loyal to the occasion, authorities and management, due to this fact everybody had religion and I acquired this chance.

I had the religion that the soul of Honorable Amma, which is in me, would information me and this authorities, which was shaped by her, would full its time period.

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When I took cost as Chief Minister on February 16, 2017, some mentioned this authorities wouldn’t final even 10 days. But now this authorities is about to finish 4 years. Amma’s authorities continues to efficiently implement folks’s welfare schemes and is performing exceptionally effectively with the goodwill of the folks. As a results of this, the Tamil Nadu authorities is receiving quite a few awards like by no means earlier than previously. On this event I wish to state that as Amma had mentioned, the AIADMK authorities would exceptionally serve the folks for a number of hundred years to come back with the only real purpose of individuals’s welfare.

What classes did you be taught from the AIADMK-led NDA’s rout within the final Lok Sabha elections? Did the leads to any means affect your authorities’s subsequent coverage choices, say as an example, the declaration of Cauvery Delta as protected agricultural zones or the 7.5% reservation for presidency college college students in medical admissions?

Victory and defeat are pure in elections. In a democracy, the folks’s verdict is remaining. We think about the folks.

Our movement [AIADMK], guided by Puratchi Thalaivar MGR and Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, just isn’t one that modifications its insurance policies for the sake of victory or defeat. Under any circumstances, we will by no means backtrack from our insurance policies drafted for the welfare of the folks. During my excursions to varied districts, I learnt concerning the wants of the native folks. It is just on that foundation that Honorable Amma’s authorities is conceiving and implementing each scheme.

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The 2021 Assembly election is essential for you. The AIADMK has been in energy for near 10 years, it confronted a rout within the Lok Sabha polls and the DMK is on an upswing after making vital beneficial properties within the rural native physique polls. What gives you the confidence that the folks would offer you a third straight win?

In the final 10 years, varied schemes have been carried out for the profit and progress of the folks. There is hope. Definitely this time too, the AIADMK will win and rating a hat-trick. Wherever I’m going, folks, who’ve benefitted from the schemes of the Amma’s authorities, are coming in droves on their very own and expressing their huge assist. The soul of Puratchi Thalaivar MGR, who nonetheless lives within the hearts of the folks, and Amma’s soul will at all times stand by us.

Do you foresee any modifications within the composition of your alliance and is there a timeframe for finalising the seat sharing train?

There will be no change within the alliance. There could also be minor variations of opinion as a result of every occasion’s insurance policies. Issues resembling seat sharing will be mentioned solely when elections are notified. Even opposition events haven’t finished it. Numbers being floated in sections of media on the seats to be allotted to allies are unofficial and merely speculative. The occasion can’t take duty for it.

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Some sections inside the AIADMK consider that the alliance with the BJP is an electoral legal responsibility. Given this, why did you and [party coordinator] Mr Panneerselvam unilaterally declare continuation of an alliance with the nationwide occasion?

The alliance shaped beneath our [AIADMK] management in the course of the earlier Lok Sabha polls (2019) is constant. There are not any variations of opinion inside our occasion on the alliance with the BJP. Only in a method to reaffirm this, we introduced the continuation of the alliance within the operate by which the Home Minister [Amit Shah] participated.

Several leaders of the BJP have been consistently giving the impression that they have been reluctant to endorse your candidature for the Chief Minister’s put up. At the bottom degree, would this not create animosity between AIADMK and BJP cadres affecting electoral outcomes?

So far as Tamil Nadu is anxious solely the AIADMK is heading the alliance. This entrance, in Tamil Nadu, will solely be generally known as the AIADMK-led alliance. The AIADMK’s chosen candidate will be the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate as effectively. There will be no second opinion on this. Not simply that, even on Monday, the BJP’s Tamil Nadu in-charge [C.T. Ravi] had mentioned that the AIADMK, which is the most important occasion, will determine on its Chief Ministerial candidate.

Can we anticipate the AIADMK to contest in a majority of seats like 165 because it did in 2011? How many seats do you anticipate the AIADMK-alliance to win within the subsequent elections?

We can’t say now concerning the variety of seats we would contest. That can be finalised solely after talks with leaders of alliance events. As for the variety of seats we would win, we can’t put a quantity to that. However, undoubtedly the AIADMK-led alliance will win in a majority of the seats and kind the federal government for a third time in succession.

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The occasion coordinator and Deputy Chief Minister Mr O. Panneerselvam and also you have been as soon as hailed as ‘double barrel guns’ by occasion leaders. However, now there are studies of friction. . Have all of the variations between you been sorted out?

We each are collectively exceptionally working for the event of the occasion, authorities, the folks and Tamil Nadu.

Could you elaborate in your ongoing election tour and the response it has drawn?

While electioneering wherever I’m going, seeing the folks’s rebellion and joyful expressions on their faces, I’ve full religion that Amma’s authorities can be voted again. I’ve seen six Assembly elections and three Parliamentary elections, and might decide folks’s temper to an extent. From the reception accorded to us, I’m assured that we will win in majority of seats.

Would your election manifesto embrace any assurance for offering common primary revenue?

The manifesto will be launched throughout elections addressing the necessities for Tamil Nadu’s improvement and the essential wants of the folks.

You and [DMK president] M. K. Stalin have employed impartial ballot strategists. You have come from the grassroots. Is it crucial for established political events to belief the strategists greater than occasion functionaries?

Party functionaries, who meet folks usually, know the bottom realities effectively. Only they’re repeatedly struggling for folks’s points. Hence we are forming methods to face elections primarily based on strategies given by subject degree occasion functionaries. At the identical time, in accordance with altering info know-how situation, some modifications should be made.

Mr Stalin had submitted to the Governor a memorandum containing corruption expenses towards you and your cupboard colleagues. He has put sure circumstances to comply with your invitation for a debate on these expenses…

The Leader of the Opposition is the one who had given a grievance to the Governor levelling false expenses towards us. I’m calling him to debate solely on this. How might we debate on what’s pending earlier than the courtroom? [Mr Stalin wanted the CM to get a court stay order vacated in a case.] I’m ready to reply to his expenses however he’s refusing and making an attempt to keep away from a debate citing excuses.

Among the fees within the memorandum, one pertains to a highway mission in Tirunelveli for which the tender was cancelled one-and-a-half years in the past. As the adage goes, a grain is proof for a pot of rice. Therefore, all the fees are false.

Unlike within the erstwhile DMK regime when field tender system was adopted, we now have a clear e-tender system in place by which anybody might submit a bid. The competent bidders will get the tender and all that is sorted out on the degree of officers and it doesn’t even come to the Chief Minister. In truth, it was in the course of the DMK regime that the estimate for developing the brand new secretariat advanced had gone up two fold. Only to cowl up corruption expenses towards the DMK and to derive political mileage in elections, the Leader of Opposition is inserting such expenses earlier than the folks and making an attempt to confuse them.

Do you see scope for a third participant like Kamal Haasan to make inroads within the coming elections? Or is it going to stay a battle between the 2 Dravidian events?

As far as Tamil Nadu is anxious, the competition is between alliances led by the 2 Dravidian events. People of the State don’t assist a third entrance. They have rejected it. The defeat of the Makkal Nala Kootani [People’s Welfare Front] within the 2016 Assembly election is proof of this.

The AIADMK, launched by Puratchi Thalaivar MGR, is a motion of staff. Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, who succeeded Puratchi Thalaivar, had guided crores of staff and guarded the occasion and the federal government. After having been elected Chief Minister subsequent to passing away of Amma, I’ve been striving onerous in a means that the occasion staff and all commend me. I’m an instance of how the cadres can come up in the event that they put in onerous work. It is the attraction of Mr Panneerselvam and me that the occasion staff ought to work vigilantly and punctiliously for securing the victory so that the Amma authorities stays in workplace.