AIADMK senior leader takes potshots at BJP over Kongu Nadu idea

He made this statement with regard to controversial remarks by some BJP leaders to carve out Western districts to form Kongu Nadu by bifurcating Tamil Nadu. 

“It is common expectation for all parties that the Centre should not interfere in the rights of the state government. Former chief ministers MGR, Jayalalithaa and Edappadi K Palaniswami had thoughts on similar lines and it was also the stand of the AIADMK. But, they (BJP) have come out with such a ‘mischievous’ thought with an intention to belittle someone (DMK). Such ideas are not good for the nation,” he said, while speaking to reporters in Krishnagiri district on Monday. 

Training his guns further on BJP without naming it, Munusamy said that people of Tamil Nadu should not be sowed with such seeds of separation. “The country will definitely lose power, if it is bifurcated into states of smaller sizes,” he said. 

Though the DMK and other parties in its alliance were opposing the BJP’s controversial talk on Kongu Nadu by bifurcating Tamil Nadu, this is for the first time that a AIADMK’s senior leader himself had come out with a no holds barred attack against the saffron party. 

The AIADMK- BJP relationship has already come under strain after former AIADMK minister CVe Shanmugham claimed that AIADMK lost the Assembly polls due to its alliance with the BJP. 

“Priority shouldn’t be given to the views expressed by an individual, when it is not known, even if their party high command will agree to the plan of bifurcation. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, the people from the Southernmost Kanniyakumari to Chennai are united in their thought that this is a single state and they shouldn’t be sowed with the seeds of separation,” he added. 

Referring to dam row across Markandeya River, Munusamy said that on such issues of conflict between the two states, the Union government should stand by justice without taking sides.