Chennai: Already at a cross roads after the electoral rout and the 2G scam taint, the DMK is feeling the heat of the AIADMK Government’s crackdown on land grabbing with an increasing number of its functionaries and senior leaders coming under the police net.
The Jayalalithaa government’s action has raised the hackles of DMK, provoking it to cry foul and call for a state-wide protest tomorrow. Several former ministers and the once powerful district functionaries of the party are either under judicial custody or forced to move the court for bail as complaints of land grabbing are flooding the special police cells set up by the government to exclusively deal with such cases.
DMK’s Salem satrap and former Agriculture Minister Veerapandi Arumugam became the first party bigwig to be held by police while several close aides of Union Minister and South Zone Organising Secretary M K Alagiri, Madurai-based son of party President M Karunanidhi, are also among those already arrested. Besides Arumugam, other former ministers facing land grabbing complaints are K N Nehru and I Periyasamy. In one of its first actions after coming to power in May, the AIADMK Government has ordered crackdown on land grabbings allegedly committed during the previous DMK regime, fulfilling an electoral promise made by chief minister Jayalalithaa. (PTI)