'Stalin and DMK are slaves of Congress': Palaniswami hits back after Stalin's 'Nitish Kumar' analogy

NEW DELHI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Sunday described Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin's DMK as a “slave” of the Congress, an ally of the state's ruling party.His remarks came a day after Stalin said Palaniswami would “meet the same fate” as outgoing Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at the hands of the BJP. Both the AIADMK and Kumar’s JD(U) are allies of the BJP, which leads the government at the Centre.“For 20 days, the Congress and the DMK were engaged in a war of words over seat-sharing and related issues. In the end, the Congress intimidated the DMK and secured 28 seats for the Assembly polls,” Palaniswami, a former Tamil Nadu chief minister, said at a rally in Perunthurai.“People have not forgotten that even when DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi was alive, the Congress intimidated the DMK, reduced it to a slave and forged an alliance with it. This was achieved by conducting raids while seat-sharing talks were underway,” he alleged, referring to the period when the Congress was in power at the Centre.He added the AIADMK, on the other hand, is an “independent party” that chose to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on its own.Now, in a bid to dislodge the DMK from power, the AIADMK has formed an alliance which he described as “robust, transparent and cordial,” unlike the DMK-led coalition.The AIADMK and the BJP reunited in April last year. Stalin’s remarks drawing a comparison between Palaniswami and Nitish Kumar referred to the Bihar chief minister’s recent move to file a Rajya Sabha nomination after leading the state for nearly two decades and only months after steering the JD(U)-BJP alliance to a landslide victory in Bihar.The opposition has described the development as a move “orchestrated” by the BJP.(With PTI inputs)