CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday accused Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay of indulging in “dirty horse-trading” to save his govt. Palaniswami dared Vijay to show courage and “face us head-on” instead of resorting to “shameful act.”Campaigning for Kanitha Sampath who is the party candidate for the Oct 6 byelection in Maduranthakam, Palaniswami slammed the TVK for forcing an unnecessary election on the public. “The election is the result of greed and betrayal,” said Palaniswami, who spared no words to criticise former MLA Maragatham Kumaravel, who defected to the TVK.“This bypoll is not natural. It was deliberately engineered through horse-trading,” Palaniswami said.“A candidate who won solely on the hard work of AIADMK workers was bought off to save their government. Show some courage and face us head-on instead of hiding behind money power,” said Palaniswami, challenging Vijay, who will campaign in constituency on Friday in support of Kumaravel.He called out defectors Kumaravel and P Sathyabama, who is the TVK candidate in Dharapuram, for betraying voters within days of taking office. “For the first time in Indian history, an MLA resigned just 12 days after being elected and joined another party within five minutes,” he noted.Without a tinge of gratitude for the voters or the party workers, they switched sides out of pure greed, he said, requesting the people to “teach them a lesson and make them lose their deposit!”Palaniswami accused Vijay of luring MLAs like children with candy and described it as “unprecedented corrupt tactics” just to stay in power.“TVK lacks a real majority. So, they treat our MLAs like children, luring them with candy to force resignations. Trying to sustain a govt by buying off another party’s MLA is disgraceful. TVK is the only party in India committing such shameful acts,” he said.He urged the electorate to punish the defectors at the ballot box and reject what he described as “trade-off politics.”
