Fight NOTA, says Thambidurai, worry about notes, retorts BJP

Thambidurai made this remark while addressing a party meet in Karur on Saturday. “No national party can defeat the AIADMK regime and none of them has such a prospect here,” he said.

In an apparent reference to the BJP’s performance in the RK Nagar bypoll, where the party finished after the NOTA, Thambidurai observed that the national party should limit its contest with the NOTA and cannot compete with the AIADMK.

Thambidurai said the Dravidian movement could not be destroyed by any force, including the national parties. “As you can see, the contemporary faring of the national party is as such that they could not even save their election deposit. They (BJP) secured less votes than the NOTA. This will be the national party’s performance in the state,” said Thambidurai.

Despite receiving brickbats from the Opposition on being subservient to the ruling BJP at the Centre, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, who is also party’s joint-coordinator and Deputy CM and party’s coordinator O Panneerselvam were defending their truck with the BJP as a means to get funds from the Centre.

The outburst also comes at a time when Panneerselvam had reeled out a fat list of reimbursement of funds awaited from the Centre after his participation in the pre-budget meeting in New Delhi. Panneerselvam also did not get appointment from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the visit and could not get dates from Modi for the grand finale of the state’s celebrations of MGR

centenary here.

When reporters asked Panneerselvam to react to Thambidurai’s strong remarks, his terse media interaction came to an end. He evaded the question by wearing his usual smile and walked off from the interaction with a party man wondering aloud as to why the media was trying to land Panneerselvam in trouble.

Responding to Thambidurai’s remarks, BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan claimed that everyone now has to worry about the ‘notes (money)’ not NOTA. “The money factor became a setback for all parties, including the ruling one. The DMK’s vote share has shrunk phenomenally, and it has lost its deposit too,” she said.