Vote DMK-Congress to power for total prohibition: Rahul Gandhi

Addressing a modest crowd at Madurai on Saturday, the Congress vice president claimed that in the last five years the number of liquor shops had increased from 1,800 to 6,800. 

While Chief Minister Jayalalithaa promised freebies worth Rs 5,000 per household ahead of polls in 2011, he said that the AIADMK government also did another thing, which was out of its election promises, that of collecting Rs 60,000 from every family through liquor sale. Promising to put a permanent end to the liquor menace haunting the state, Rahul assured that the DMK-Congress front, if voted to power, would enforce total prohibition. 

Charging that the governance in Tamil Nadu was crippled and had fallen in all parameters, he said that it was not the situation that leaders like Periyar, former Chief Ministers, Kamaraj, MG Ramachandran and Karunanidhi, dreamt of. 

Rahul also criticised Jayalalithaa for being inactive during the time of flood and claimed that he too came from New Delhi to help the people of Chennai. 

DMK treasurer, MK Stalin, in his address, claimed that it was in Madurai Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and DMK leader Karunanidhi together laid the foundation stone for the Sethusamudram project in 2005 with the intent of ushering in industrial growth and employment in southern part of the state. But, the AIADMK government went to SC and got a stay on the project.