Erode (East) bypoll win proves our keenness to keep promises, says Stalin
The Hindu
COIMBATORE
The “emphatic” victory of the Congress, a constituent of the Secular Progressive Alliance, in the Erode (East) byelection testified to the seriousness with which the ruling DMK fulfilled its election promises, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said here on Saturday.
“The DMK government did not stop with providing a COVID-19 relief of ₹4,000 to every family card-holder, introducing free bus travel for women and fulfilling other promises, but it also initiated measures such as the ‘Pudhumai Penn’ scheme for girl students...,” he said.
“This drove the victory margin in Erode (East) from less than 10,000 votes in the last election to over 66,000 this time,” Mr. Stalin said, speaking at a function to welcome over 4,000 workers from the AIADMK, the DMDK and other parties in the Coimbatore region to the DMK. These workers joined the DMK under the leadership of former MLA Kovai Selvaraj, who had himself joined the DMK from the AIADMK faction, led by the deposed coordinator, O. Panneerselvam, in December last.
Attributing the DMK’s growth in the region to the leadership of Electricity Minister Senthilbalaji, who is in charge of the party in Coimbtore district, the Chief Minister said the victory in Erode (East) augured well for the DMK to win all 40 Lok Sabha seats — 39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry — in the 2024 general election. Mr. Stalin said, “In the last Lok Sabha election, the alliance conceded one seat to the opponent. It will not happen this time.”
Hinting at a national role for the DMK, Mr. Stalin said the party would soon have a presence in other States.
The DMK was epochal, Mr. Stalin said. Some parties, he said, would surface just for winning elections and then fade away. The DMK was formed primarily to assert the self-respect of the Tamils and serve the poor.
Though the party was formed by late C.N. Annadurai in 1949, it entered the electoral fray only in 1957 based on a referendum, he said. “Then on, the DMK witnessed the best of victories and the worst of defeats,” he said.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.