CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin Sunday decided to send senior DMK functionaries to meet chief ministers and senior politicians from seven states, including BJP-governed Odisha, to rally support for his campaign against Centre’s proposed delimitation exercise.
At a meeting with DMK MPs, Stalin assigned responsibility for each of the seven states. Tamal Nadu IT minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan will engage with Kerala politicians, while DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi will head a delegation to West Bengal. State PWD minister E V Velu has been tasked with meeting politicians of Andhra Pradesh while industries minister TRB Rajaa will head for Odisha.
Similar delegations will be sent to AAP-governed Punjab and Congress-run Telangana and Karnataka.
Stalin had last week written to the CMs and other key politicians of these seven states, explaining TN govt’s position against population-based delimitation. Calling it “an unfair exercise”, Stalin had said the Centre’s plan was a “blatant assault on federalism, punishing states that ensured population control and good governance by stripping away our rightful voice in Parliament”.
With the Parliament session set to begin on Monday, Stalin has also instructed DMK MPs to raise in the two Houses key issues, including opposition to Hindi imposition, objections to the National Education Policy, and the demand for pending funds for Tamil Nadu.
Three resolutions were passed at the DMK meeting at Anna Arivalayam: to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s parliamentary representation by raising the delimitation issue in Parliament, unite all the states that successfully implemented population control measures which were likely to be affected by the delimitation exercise and work with other MPs from the INDIA bloc and other democratic forces to uphold states’ rights in the delimitation process.