CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday criticised the DMK government over its newly announced 'Ungal Kanavai Sollungal Thittam', alleging that the scheme was a political exercise aimed at misleading the public ahead of the Assembly elections.
In a statement, Palaniswami said the DMK government, nearing the end of its tenure, had begun announcing schemes on a daily basis to "cheat and confuse" the people. He described the door-to-door survey, proposed to be conducted by around 50,000 volunteers to collect public demands, as nothing more than a "political drama".
Palaniswami further alleged that the collection of Aadhaar details, mobile phone numbers and other personal information from the public amounted to a violation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and warned that such data collection was illegal.
He alleged that the scheme's implementation had been handed over to a private agency through the back door, that was already involved in election strategy work for Chief Minister MK Stalin.
He claimed that DMK party cadres were being projected as volunteers and that the initiative was being misused for election campaigning under the guise of a government programme.
Urging the State government to immediately stop spending crores of rupees of public money on what he termed "scandalous and politically motivated schemes", Palaniswami said the DMK should instead focus on genuine welfare measures for the people and refrain from resorting to what he called cheap political strategies.