Tiruvarur:
Hitting out at Jayalalithaa government for foisting "false land-grabbing cases" against his partymen, DMK chief M Karunanidhi said on Saturday that they are not afraid of jail and the Dravidian movement cannot be wiped out by such 'vendetta politics'.
"I do not know how long I will live but am sure that nobody can finish off DMK and the feeling of being a Dravidian will not diminish," the 87-year old leader told a public meeting in his home constituency-cum-native town.
Addressing the meeting organised to condemn the arrest of DMK District Secretary Poondi K Kalaivanan, the DMK patriarch charged the AIADMK government with indulging in vendetta politics and foisting false cases against the party cadre.
"Have we not seen Palayamkottai jail? Do we fear Palayamkottai jail?" he said referring to Kalaivanan's imprisonment there.
Citing the arrest of party MLAs J Anbazhagan and former minister Veerpandi S Arumugam, he wondered whether it was "Nada illai Kaada (is this a state or a jungle), and people live in an uncertainty whether they would be picked up by the police in the mid-night or woken up to see a policeman's face."
Referring to the arrest of Jayalalithaa during DMK rule, he said it was done on the direction of the court. "Even then, she was treated with dignity," he said taking on the police for arresting his partymen in "false" cases.
The protest meeting comes in the backdrop of the Jaylalithaa government's state-wide crackdown on land-grabbing and arrest of several functionaries of the DMK.
Karunanidhi said while the disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa was pending for the past 12 years, police were swift in taking action against his partymen on "false charges".
In a veiled attack on Brahmins, the DMK president said there were certain people from a community who were bent upon finishing off the Dravidian movement, but their effort would not succeed.
On Jayalalithaa's charge that she inherited Rs one lakh crore debt left by the DMK regime, Karunanidhi said when he took over as chief minister in 2006, she too had left behind a huge amount as debt.
"The government normally borrows money to implement various welfare programmes," he said defending the huge debt and accused Jayalalithaa of coming to power by false promises.
He cited a report which said the Jayalalithaa government would have to go for heavy borrowing this year to meet various schemes.