CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday said the upcoming Assembly election would be a contest between truth and propaganda, rejecting Chief Minister MK Stalin’s claim that the 7.5% internal reservation for government school students in medical admissions was implemented under DMK pressure.
In a statement, Palaniswami said the DMK had no role in introducing the 7.5% internal reservation, asserting that it was conceived, legislated and implemented by the AIADMK government. The decision, he said, was taken proactively without any agitation or demand from Opposition parties. “Neither students, parents nor political parties sought it. It was a policy decision taken out of conviction,” he said, accusing the Chief Minister of attempting to appropriate a historic social justice reform for narrow political gain.
He said the 7.5% internal reservation had changed the lives of thousands of government school students. Citing the breakfast scheme for Chennai Corporation schools, he said the initiative was launched during the AIADMK regime with innovative private participation and alleged that the present government was merely rebranding earlier schemes. The present government, he alleged, survived on advertisements and false claims.
“The upcoming Assembly election will not merely be a contest between two parties. It will be a referendum on truth versus propaganda, governance performance versus pretence,” Palaniswami said.
In a separate statement, he alleged that government schools in Tamil Nadu had become unsafe for children. He referred to two recent incidents in which a student died after being bitten by a venomous snake on a school campus in Valangaiman in Tiruvarur district, and a Class 3 student died after being bitten by a poisonous insect in a government school at Kumarapalayam in Namakkal district.
These deaths, he said, exposed inhuman and dangerous conditions prevailing in government schools under the DMK regime. Schools that should be places of learning had turned into unsafe and unhygienic spaces, with students studying amid collapsing roofs, crumbling walls, contaminated food and the presence of venomous creatures, he alleged.
He also condemned an incident in which students were allegedly made to clean an overhead water tank at a government school in Keezhathenur near Rishivandiyam in Kallakurichi district, calling it shocking and unacceptable.