Tamil Nadu: AIADMK protests against hike in power tariff, property tax

The AIADMKparty leaders on Wednesday staged a protest against increase in power tariff and property tax by the state government.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party leaders on Wednesday staged a protest against increase in power tariff and property tax by the state government. The protest in Chennai's Royapuram was led by the former CM Edappadi Palaniswami who is commonly known as EPS.

More than 5,000 AIADMK supporters participated in the protest including former Ministers D Jayakumar, Thangamani, Velu Mani and OS Maniyan.

"The DMK Government is not at all concerned about the lower and middle class people, there are anti people activity taking place in Tamil Nadu," AIADMK leaders said.

During the protest Edapadi Palaniswami said, "For more than 15 years after the death of Great leader MGR, only J.Jayalalitha was the greatest Chief minister of Tamil Nadu. She didn't come up just like that to that big position. She suffered lots of pain to come up".

"The DMK said that the Edappadi Government would soon be overthrown but AIADMK gave good governance for four and a half years. DMK tried to break the party, we have crushed all that with the support of volunteers. Now the people are suffering after DMK came to power. The party that divides the family is the DMK party," he added.

EPS further asked, "The DMK led government of the state promised to cancel the NEET exam but AIADMK government on the other hand helped poor students by providing 7.5% internal quota. Sasikala also joined hands with DMK secretly."

He further said Kallakurichi student committed suicide so many protests happened.

Earlier, on July 11, Edappadi Palaniswami slammed rival O Paneerselvam (OPS) and the MK Stalin-led DMK government. In his address to the General Council members after his appointment, EPS hit out at OPS and said that the latter keeps on saying that he had sacrificed a lot for the party.

The ruling party DMK and the state Chief Minister MK Stalin in his manifesto made promises and among them one was not to increase property tax in the state. Apart from this Stalin led government fought elections on many other promises including providing ration card holders Rs 4,000, slashing the cost of petrol, diesel and milk in the state.