Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan has objected to DMK president Stalin’s alliance with the Congress, the perpetrators of Emergency in the country, reminding him of his father’s saying that ‘improper friendship only brought evil to both the sides’.

Speaking to newsmen at Coimbatore Airport yesterday, Ponnar, the lone BJP Lok Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu, said that he was happy that the birthday of the party’s veteran leader and former prime-minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was being held in a grand manner across the State and in other parts of the country.

“We plan to organize street-corner meetings at all places to explain to the people the welfare schemes implemented by the BJP-led Centre during the four-and-a-half year long tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said. Responding to DMK president Stalin’s statement that the law and order scenario in Tamil Nadu at present was worse than the ‘Emergency’ days, Ponnar shot back stating he didn’t come across any unlawful murder, illegal confinement or targeting opposition leaders by the Govt.

“Stalin has forgotten the demise of party leader Chittibabu (during Emergency) and is allying with Congress which imposed Emergency in the country. I’m sure the DMK-Congress alliance would be benefiting neither of the parties. Stalin would do well to remember his late father’s oft-repeated reference on courting wrong friends,” he said.

“The DMK couldn’t loot during its alliance with the BJP in 1999; instead, it looted liberally during the decade-long Congress-led UPA Govt. at the Centre from 2004-14. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and DMK leader A. Raja’s allegations and counter-allegations are proof enough for this,” he said and attacked the Congress for its double-talk on the Mekedatu Dam construction row.