Palaniswami forced to bow before BJP because he indulged in corruption: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at AIADMK top leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami, saying that he is ‘trapped’ as he had indulged in corruption because of which he was forced to bow in front of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Addressing a public meeting in Chennai for the April 6 Assembly polls, Gandhi said when he saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'controlling' the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and making him "touch his feet silently I am not ready to accept it."

A 'leader' in Uttar Pradesh was forced to bow in front of Shah as he was corrupt and this person lost his freedom due to graft and Palaniswami too faced a similar situation, he said.

“Sometime back, when I was a Member of Parliament from Amethi, one of the local leaders left the Congress and went to the BJP and he was a junior fellow. The day, he joined the BJP, because he was joining from nearby my constituency, the senior ranks of the BJP brought him into the party. I saw the picture of this leader meeting Mr. Amit Shah.

“He was a democratically elected leader who had gone to the BJP and in the picture Mr. Amit Shah was sitting on a sofa and the democratically elected leader was touching his feet, bowing his head and doing this (showing joining hands and bowing his head). It was not the relationship of respect; it was a relationship of disrespect. Elected person touching the feet and groveling in front of a more powerful person and that is the only relationship that one can have in the BJP. There is no other relationship possible,” he said.

"The tragedy is, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu does not want to bow in front of Amit Shah and no Tamil person will want to do that," Rahul said, adding that Palaniswami is forced to bow in front of Shah because of the "corruption he has done."

"Ironically, because of the money he has stolen from the people of Tamil Nadu, he is now trapped," the Congress leader said.

While previous polls were contests between political parties of Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK and DMK, the present one was between the AIADMK, RSS, Modi, Shah (BJP) on the one side and the Tamil people on the other side, he said.

The AIADMK-BJP front would be 'decimated' in Tamil Nadu in the poll battle and the DMK, its chief M K Stalin and his party-led Secular Progressive Alliance is the instrument that would steer the rout of AIADMK and its allies, he said. Stalin would become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Rahul said.

The 'attack' on Tamil Nadu shall, however, not end with Stalin becoming the CM, he said, adding it shall happen only when the saffron party was removed from power in Delhi.

“In this election, it is not a fight of political parties, this has now become an election between AIADMK- RSS- Modi and Shah vs the Tamil people. So, you are going to see now a decimation of the AIADMK, BJP, RSS combine and the instrument of that decimation is going to be the DMK alliance and Mr Stalin and he is going to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

“The battle will not stop there, the attack on Tamil Nadu will not stop there, please don’t think it will. The attack on Tamil Nadu will only stop, when the BJP and the RSS are removed from Delhi and no compromise with them is going to be tolerated. The Tamil people will simply not accept it, Mr. Stalin will not accept it, I will not accept it,” he said.