No hanky-panky: EPS bristles over mask taunt

COIMBATORE: Bristling at the allegation that he covered his face while emerging from a meeting with BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday said he had merely wiped his face with a handkerchief but was twisted with an ulterior motive.

Speaking to the media in Salem, Palaniswami said he met Shah seeking to confer Bharat Ratna honour on freedom fighter Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar, and added that the news about the meeting was carried in all the media, implying that there was nothing to hide.

“When I met him, the senior party leaders accompanying me left, as it got late. As I left the meeting, I simply wiped my face. That was when someone took a video to make a false narrative with an ulterior motive. I feel pained and embarrassed,” he said.

Expressing deep displeasure over the incident, he alleged that the political scenario has gone so low that “I have to inform the media even if I visit the restroom. The DMK has been raising such issues as they do not have anything else to talk about.”

Flaying AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, who ridiculed him as ‘mogamoodiyar’, Palaniswami said it was Dhinakaran who actually wore a mask while coming to AIADMK after he was expelled from the party.

“Former chief minister J Jayalalithaa had expelled him from the party on December 19, 2011, for 10 years. He didn’t come to Chennai until Jayalalithaa was alive, but is now raising baseless allegations with ulterior motives,” he said.

He asserted that Dhinakaran and O Panneerselvam would not be taken back into the party. In a veiled reference to KA Sengottaiyan, the senior leader who demanded the re-induction of these two expelled leaders, Palaniswami warned of action against those who defy the party writs.

Facing allegations that the BJP was dictating terms with AIADMK, including prodding Sengottaiyan to rise in dissent, he claimed that the Saffron party does not interfere in AIADMK’s internal affairs, and recalled Shah making it clear months ago.

He also hit out at Chief Minister MK Stalin, noting how he once called V Senthilbalaji corrupt but is now heaping praises as if the ousted minister is a saint.