‘How many more lives needed to approve online gambling ban?’

CHENNAI: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday sought to know as to how many lives does the state governor need to give his assent to the legislation banning online gambling.

Launching a scathing attack on the governor and the union government for the delay in giving assent to legislation banning online gambling in the state, Stalin referred to reported deaths of people affected by online rummy during the last week in the state and said, “All of this happened in the last one week. Is the Tamil Nadu governor unaware of it? How many more lives need to be lost for him to give his assent to the legislation?”

Reasoning that the legislation for banning online gambling was enacted only on the basis of an order of the Madras High Court, the CM said that the governor was insulting the State Assembly which unanimously passed such a legislation.

“It remains a mystery as to how a governor who gave his assent to an ordinance is not giving his assent for the same legislation for over three months. Even worse is the budgetary proposal to impose tax on money won through such online games,” the CM said, concluding as to what could he say about people (union government) who impose tax in a manner legalising online games instead of banning them.

Dubbing the non-allocation of funds for the proposed AIIMS in Madurai in the union budget as an illustration of neglect of TN, Stalin assured that all the promises made by his party would be fulfilled and the pending schemes implemented in a year.

To a specific query on the advantages AIADMK gets from securing the two leaves symbol, the CM, in the third episode of his “ungalil oruvan bathilgal” video released this morning, reminded, “Do not forget that the Two Leaves symbol (of AIADMK) was defeated in the Parliament, Assembly, urban and rural local body polls and the polls prior to that.”