Tamil Nadu Minister for Fisheries D Jayakumar, on Tuesday, slammed Rajinikanth for his remarks against the government, where he slammed the ruling dispensation at a public meeting.
Speaking to reporters, Jayakumar accused Rajinikanth of not knowing the political history of AIADMK and Tamil Nadu, and hence, should not have expressed his comments.
“MG Ramachandran (MGR) created AIADMK after opposing M Karunanidhi. Following MGR’s footsteps, our Amma (former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa) also governed the state and is also revered and held in their hearts by the people. Rajinikanth has hidden all this history behind the politics in TN today. There is no way that he knows how MGR developed politics through his movies. In each of MGR’s movies a man and a woman will be there in the frame holding flags. He conveyed social message to people through his songs,” he said.
He also said that Rajinikanth could not say any of his opinions when MGR and Jayalalithaa were alive and called his giving a speech yesterday a cowardly act.
Calling Rajinikanth an opportunist, Jayakumar said, “To talk politics in a condolence meet is not healthy. I would say that Rajinikanth is an inexperienced politician to have done this. He should be aware of the history of politics. I feel that Rajinikanth is using this situation to catapult himself as a full-fledged politician after being a part-time politician all this while. He is using the death of Kalaignar to pull the DMK cadres to his side. I think he shouldn’t have spoken bad about MGR and Amma in the dias yesterday.”
Emphasising that Rajinikanth’s opportunism will not work in Tamil Nadu, D Jayakumar said that Rajinikanth must not speak about things that he barely knows about, for the sake of it.
Addressing the allegations that the TN government did not respect Karunanidhi during his last rites, Jayakumar said that they visited Karunanidhi’s Gopalapuram residence immediately after he passed away and also paid their respects to him at Rajaji Hall.
“Our government paid all the respects from the date Karunanidhi was hospitalised to the day he was buried. We couldn’t allot land in Marina due to legal complications, but still we were ready to give two acres of land in Gandhi Mandapam. Then after the High Court order, we accepted it and gave the land and also all other help to the family,” he said.
The rebuttal came after Rajinikanth, in a speech at a homage meeting for Karunanidhi organised by FEFSI on Monday, said that irrespective of the entire country coming together in Marina to pay their respects to the leader during his last rites and raised questions as to why the TN Chief Minister was absent in the ceremony.
He also said that since the era of MGR and Jayalalithaa is over, there is no need for enmity between individuals now. He added that if the TN government had chosen to appeal against the Madras HC order allotting land for Karunanidhi in Marina, he would have protested against it.