Regulate PDS supply or face more protests, warns DMK

DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, who along with the party cadre, was arrested in the city for staging a demonstration in front of a fair price shop at Royapettah in the city, said that welfare schemes announced by the state government were not being delivered to the people properly as the ruling AIADMK was only keen on increasing sales at TASMAC liquor shop and not PDS outlets. 

Alleging that the government was only keen on protecting its MLAs and government, Kanimozhi said the ruling AIADMK was not as concerned about delivering products to people at PDS outlets as it is in securing its MLAs support. 

She also added “the people are growing restless and they would soon overthrow the indifferent AIADMK government.” 

DMK working president MK Stalin who visited the arrested party cadre later in the evening condemned the AIADMK for not ensuring proper supply of PDS products to the people. Stalin had earlier paid a surprise visit to a PDS outlet in his Kolathur constituency, where he consulted the consumers and the salesmen before advising his party MLAs to do the same in their constituencies. 

In western region, more than 30,000 DMK cadre were arrested. Many sitting and former MLAs who were picketing in front of over 2,000 PDS outlets in the eight districts in the region were held. 

In Coimbatore, more than 5,700 cadre including 766 women were arrested for trying to picket 197 outlets. This included 107 outlets in the city. Singanallur MLA N Karthik, who led the protests, said that they inspected more than 100 PDS outlets in the city and came to know that ration card holders were not getting their share of sugar, wheat and rice as well.

The Salem city and district police arrested 5,775 persons including Salem North MLA R Rajendran for picketing 649 PDS outlets. In the city 1,480 cadre including women picketed 161 PDS outlets. In rural Salem 4,295 cadre were arrested by the district police for picketing a total of 488 PDS outlets. 

At Dharmapuri, 1,487 persons including 85 women led by Dhamrpauri MLA Thadangam P Subramani and Pennagaram MLA PNP Inbasekaran were arrested. At Krishnagiri a total of 1,882 cadre including 126 women and sitting MLAs Senguttuvan (Krishnagiri), P Murugan (Veppanahalli) and Y Prakash (Thali) were arrested. 

As many as 3,033 cadres were arrested for picketing 194 PDS outlets in The Nilgiris. In Tirupur around 6,000 party men and women were arrested for trying to picket close to 200 PDS outlets. At Erode, the police arrested 4,836 cadre including 457 women were arrested for picketing 259 outlets. In Namakkal, the party cadre staged a demonstration in front of more than 400 outlets. 

In Tiruchy, over 50,000 DMK cadre including 20,000 women were arrested across the delta for staging demonstrations in front of the PDS outlets. The protesters in delta also raised slogans against the Union government on the Food Security Act implementation in the state which already has a Universal PDS system in place. They faulted the issuance of wheat as part of the food grain allotted to each household. 

In Thanjavur, the party leaders including former union minister SS Palanimanickam staged protest in front of the ration shop at North Main Street. Police sources said though there were protests in front of 430 rations shops across the district in which 7,850 DMK cadre participated, as many as 3,800 cadre who staged protest in front of 240 shops were arrested. 

In Madurai over 3,733 DMK cadres were arrested for staging demo in front of various PDS shops. As there was no permission for the demo 1,720 DMK cadres and functionaries including 220 women were arrested in Madurai city. Similarly, in the rural areas 2,013 DMK functionaries and cadres including 120 women, who participated in the demo were held. In Tirunelveli 4,891 DMK functionaries were held.