DRAVIDA Munnetra Kazhagam’s IT Cell chief TRB Rajaa, who is the son of DMK leader TR Baalu, on Monday responded to BJP’s allegations against Baalu that he took pride in demolishing temples in a speech. While saying K Annamalai, BJP Tamil Nadu President, was doing “cheap division mongering in the name of religion”, Rajaa called him “silly wannabe mushroom”.
“While we strive to engage in civil dialogue for the overall well-being of the state it’s sad to see the party which rules a nation give space to immature half-baked attention seekers to use a chair occupied by some respectable individuals who fought the political fight based on ideology & programme implementation rather than wanting to feed of the impact of cheap #FakeNews & edited videos,” Rajaa said, taking in micro-blogging site Twitter, escalating the verbal feud even further.
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Earlier, the Tamil Nadu BJP chief had shared a video in which Rajaa’s father TR Baalu could be seen delivering a speech. He alleged that in the speech Baalu is taking pride on demolishing temples. However, following this allegation, several people pointed out that the video shared by Annamalai is actually an edited clip which misses out the context in which Baalu was speaking.
The event was held in Madurai, on Saturday, to support the construction of the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project.
“DMK men take pride in demolishing 100-year old Hindu temples,” Annamalai had said. Annamalai also reiterated the demand of the Bharatiya Janata Party to dissolve the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to “free the temples from the clutches of government”.
In the clip that Annamalai had shared it seems that Baalu was saying that he had demolished 100-year old Hindu temples belonging to Godesses Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvathi that were located on the GST road in his Lok Sabha constituency. Later, several people shared an extended version of the video clip in which the leader apparently claims that he convinced the people for the need of demolishing the temples, even as supporters said DMK will lose votes, by assuring them that even bigger temples will be constructed in place of the existing ones.
DMK leader, TKS Elangovan, also extended his support for his party colleague. “What TR Baalu said is, bigger & better temples were built in different areas after demolishing few temples for road construction and people were satisfied with it. Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai edited Baalu’s speech & started criticising,” Elangovan said.
(With agency inputs)