Chennai, Jun 23 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on Tuesday enacted the viral hand-slashing gesture of his predecessor M K Stalin, sharply criticising the opposition DMK, remarking that the devil should not speak about evil.
Before winding up his nearly 45-minute fiery speech in the Assembly, the chief minister, pointing to the empty opposition benches, asked Speaker J C D Prabhakar if he could make a hand gesture in the House.
“I wanted to enact this little bit in the presence of the DMK members. But they have all walked out. Can I make the gesture, with your permission?” Vijay asked. Immediately, the Speaker replied, “Why not, nothing wrong”.
Then a smiling Vijay made a downward hand-slashing gesture, as the Treasury benches responded with loud thumping of tables, and it left the Speaker himself amused.
In March, after finalising the seat-sharing pact with the Congress following an impasse, then Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin made a gesture with his right hand before leaving the Anna Arivalayam (DMK state headquarters) and later clarified that he had meant that the pact ended successfully. Stalin later re-enacted the viral gesture.
Before concluding his reply to the House on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address, Vijay lashed out at the DMK, saying “Evils, evils-nu devils pesa koodathu” (devils shouldn’t talk about evils), to counter Leader of Opposition DMK Udhayanidhi Stalin’s caustic remark in the Assembly on Monday.
Targeting the ruling TVK on the law and order situation in the state, Udhayanidhi had remarked: “To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.” Earlier, the chief minister recounted a satirical story mocking the DMK leadership and said an elderly man went in search of a child’s father. A young boy approaches him and asks, “What are you looking for?” The man replies, “They told me your father would be right here. That’s why I am searching. Where’s your father? I can’t find him.” Ridiculing the DMK’s absence in the Assembly, following their walkout, and that party’s defeat in the April 23 Assembly election which made it impossible for Stalin to return to power, Vijay remarked: “We too know how to speak sarcastically”. PTI JSP JSP ADB
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