Stalin cautions workers against SIR drive in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin on Friday urged party workers to be “vigilant and prepared” to ensure that an exercise like the Special Voter Revision (SIR) taking place in Bihar, does not happen in the state and announced that he will unveil a portrait of social reformer EV Ramasamy revered as Periyar at Oxford University in London on September 4.
On Saturday, Stalin will leave for the United Kingdom and Germany to hold meetings with industrialists for investments for the state.
“Before an assembly of international scholars, the movement that set ablaze caste tyranny and burnt down barriers of gender in Tamil Nadu will be placed in dialogue with struggles worldwide for dignity, equality and freedom. Periyar’s ideals of equality are not bound by borders, they belong to humanity as a whole,” Stalin said.
“Though Periyar was born in Tamil Nadu and spoke and wrote in Tamil, his ideas are universal,” Stalin said. Periyar’s philosophy of self-respect, rationalism, women’s liberation and equality for all are not restricted to borders, the chief minister said.
Stalin was speaking at the wedding ceremony of DMK Rajya Sabha MP NR Elango’s daughter in Chennai on Friday. Stalin, on August 27, attended a rally in Bihar along with senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and criticised the ECI and the BJP.
He said that there is a need to raise awareness among people about irregularities in the voters lists that are not being conducted in Tamil Nadu by the Election Commission of India (ECI) before the 2026 assembly elections.