EPS spins wheel on DMK’s ‘failed’ poll promises

CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary and Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami launched a novel campaign against the ruling DMK in Pudukkottai on Friday, tagging it as ‘Uruttugalum Thiruttugalum,’ pointing to the general public and ‘select’ journalists what he called as unfulfilled promises of the incumbent.

As a part of the Makkalai Kaappom Thamizhagathai Meetpom campaign rally, Edappadi Palaniswami chaired an interaction with the general public, students and journalists and released a report card, along with a giant spinning wheel propped up on the stage explaining each one of them.

The AIADMK chief alleged that the DMK failed to fulfil its promises, rating the government from 0 to 10 points. The card carried sector-wise promises made by the DMK during the election campaign, and Palaniswami claimed that the DMK, after coming to power, had forgotten about the assurances.

“Chief Minister MK Stalin and his ministers claimed that out of 525 poll promises, 99 per cent were fulfilled, but actually, nothing was fulfilled, and so we distributed the list of promises and asked the people to rate them,” EPS told the reporters after releasing the card.

He also asked people to pick up scratch cards from the box, nudging the participants to scratch them and see the DMK’s promise on them, and asked them whether they were fulfilled. The general public, students and journalists were ‘handpicked’ by former minister and Pudukkottai North District Secretary C Vijayabaskar.

Similarly, a spinning wheel was also displayed, depicting the sector-wise promises made by the DMK, and the participants were asked to spin it and determine whether the promises had been fulfilled or not.

“I have covered as many as 46 Assembly constituencies so far and met around 15 lakh people. The response from the people shows that the people are frustrated with the DMK rule and are ready to shift to AIADMK,” EPS told the reporters.

Stating that there was no official schedule about the Prime Minister’s visit to Tamil Nadu, and hence, the meeting with him would be decided only after receiving the itinerary. He said that information about the AIADMK leaders meeting the PM is false.

Meanwhile, he denied the charges by DMK that the AIADMK government had stopped the distribution of free laptops to students and gold for Thalis. “These schemes could not be continued due to the uncertainty prevailing during COVID, and floating tender was also not possible. But, why, the DMK could not resume the scheme,” he asked.