Stalin accuses Union govt of withholding Tamil Nadu funds

Chennai:Chief Minister MK Stalin accused the Union government of being misleading in cutting funds for ongoing projects, besides not announcing any projects for Tamil Nadu, and even crippling the school education department by withholding funds for the SSA, which had been in operation for over 20 years.

Without an iota of interest in the education of children and livelihood of teachers in the state, the BJP government was adamant in not releasing funds since the state had not agreed to implement the new education policy, Stalin said in his video message to the people after boycotting the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday.

All the BJP government wanted was to impose its ideology and Hindi on the state, Stalin said and pointed to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama’s budget speech in which she had announced that stamp duty levied by states would be reduced without consulting the states.

After depriving states of their taxing powers by introducing the GST system and without paying the GST compensation of Rs 20,000 crore to Tamil Nadu, they have changed the system of tax collection in states, he said and asked, “Who gave them this authority?”

The middle class has been suffering for the last decade without any concession in income tax and the Union government is happy to announce a meagre tax concession of up to Rs 17,500 per annum for individual taxpayers under the NTR (new tax regime) which majority cannot avail, he said.

This is not a budget revenge on Tamil Nadu but a budget revenge on the entire nation, he said, adding that the BJP’s aim was to “save the government’s budget” to help the party stay in power.

As the spokesperson of the people of Tamil Nadu and the people of India as a whole, he warned the BJP that the ruling party was making mistake after mistake and would suffer more and more electoral defeats. It was not the two houses of Parliament that were outraged, but the hearts of the people of India too were angry, and the BJP had to answer for it.

He was forced to address the people without attending the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by the Prime Minister to seek justice for the discriminatory attitude shown towards Tamil Nadu in the Union Budget 2024, he said.

The benefits of the progressive and visionary programmes of the Dravidian model government in Tamil Nadu, implemented in the last three years, have directly reached every family, indeed every citizen, and that is why the DMK has enjoyed continued success, he said.

When the state government was driven by the motto ‘New projects every day to fill the hearts of people with joy’, the Union government continued to engage in actions that were contrary to these progressive thoughts, he said.

While the state government and all the Union governments before Narendra Modi worked not only for the people who voted for them but also for those who did not, the Narendra Modi government took revenge against the states which had opposed them in the Lok Sabha elections, he said.

Instead of preparing a budget for the welfare of all Indians, the Union Finance Minister prepared the budget to take revenge on those who voted for the INDIA bloc, which went against the oath she took while swearing allegiance to the Constitution, he said.

Continuously ignoring the state, the BJP Union government announced only AIIMS in Madurai, which had also not taken off in a decade, and neglected the demand for a disaster relief fund of Rs 37,000 crore, allocation of funds for the second phase of Chennai Metro and approval of Metro in other cities like Coimbatore and Madurai while it had cleared it in many smaller cities.