Edappadi K Palaniswami.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Salem: "My experience is more than your age," AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday told Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin and said his recent elevation in the Cabinet is Chief Minister M K Stalin's 'only achievement.'
Addressing a party event here, Palaniswami, referring to Udhayanidhi questioning him on his rise, in party and in the previous AIADMK government (2016-21), alleged that only a person born in late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi's family could get top posts and no one else.
Seeking to know the achievement of the DMK regime during its 41-month rule after it assumed power in May 2021, he said the answer is, 'nothing.' Elevating Udhayanidhi as deputy chief minister is CM Stalin's only achievement, the AIADMK chief claimed.
'What else have you done,?' the 70-year old leader of opposition asked the chief minister and said the answer is, 'nothing.'
"My experience is more than your age," Palaniswami sought to convey directly to 46-year old Udhayanidhi and said he had slogged for his party, the AIADMK, for 50 years in various capacities, beginning in 1974 from the grassroots level as the secretary of a local party unit.
Palaniswami said he was first elected to the Assembly in 1989 like Stalin. He recalled that he had been an MP and also helmed statutory bodies and later became a minister and eventually the chief minister.
The AIADMK chief said he did not get top positions immediately and his growth was gradual, both in the party and in the government, in a career spanning five decades.
The former chief minister sought to know if Udhayanidhi had a similar background.
Udhaynidhi, the AIADMK chief said, was first elected as MLA in 2021 and became a minister the next year and had recently been elevated as deputy cm, all within a very short span of time.
He wondered if there are no other suitable party leaders for elevation in the cabinet.
Palaniswami asked if Udhayanidhi had an identity, other than being the grandson of Karunanidhi and son of CM Stalin. The Deputy CM post has been given to Udhayanidhi by sidelining several senior leaders in the DMK, he alleged.