Stalin daydreaming about winning 200 seats in 2026 Assembly poll, says Palaniswami

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, on Monday said DMK president and Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was daydreaming of the DMK-led coalition winning over 200 seats in the 2026 Assembly poll.

Addressing a meeting at Vadalur, he said, “He (Mr. Stalin) is day-dreaming about it. It is the AIADMK-led front that will win 210 seats and form the next government in the State after the 2026 poll.”

Referring to the Tamil Nadu government appointing four senior bureaucrats as its official spokespersons to disseminate information on government schemes and initiatives to the public, Mr. Palaniswami said this was an attempt to hoodwink the people. “If these officers indulged in dissemination of information on schemes of the DMK government, who would take care of their usual administrative duties?” he asked.

Normally, this should be done by the Directorate of Information and Public Relations, which was headed by a Minister. He appealed to the four bureaucrats to furnish only the truth. If the officers indulged in spreading wrong information or misinformation to please the powers that be, they would be answerable after the AIADMK comes to power in 2026, he said.

Mr. Palaniswami also accused the the DMK of neglecting farmers and not fulfilling many of its assurances for the farm sector in the last four years. The government had not fulfilled its assurances of procuring sugar cane at ₹4,000 a tonne and paddy at ₹2,500 a quintal.

He said representatives of farmers’ associations had submitted a petition to him earlier in the day complaining the Perumal tank was not properly desilted. Alleging only a portion of the Perumal tank in the district was desilted, he said a probe would be ordered after the AIADMK comes to power.