The Tamil Nadu Congress is set to boycott the inaugural ceremony of Chess Olympiad 2022, scheduled to take place at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai Thursday as a mark of protest against the Centre's "ant-democratic activities". Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Chess Olympiad in the presence of Governor RN Rav, Chief Minister MK Stalin and other dignitaries. The games are scheduled to take place at Poonjeri village in Mamallapuram from July 28 to August 10. Tamil Nadu Congress legislative party leader K Selvaperunthagai, in a statement, said that the party's MLAs would boycott the event to condemn the central government which is acting against democracy and suppressing the voice of the Opposition. He noted that the party was boycotting the event only because of the Centre's anti-democratic activities and it was not to be construed as a boycott of the Chess Olympiad. Speaking to Indianexpress.com, the Congress leader said they cannot be part of an event that has PM Modi who doesn't care for the wellness of the state. "He (Modi) had been visiting the state for the past few years to take part in other events for which we were not invited but now we are officially invited for this inauguration event as members of the assembly. We accept the invitation by the government, we wholeheartedly congratulate them for taking so much effort to make this event happen but we want to condemn the activities of the Modi-led government. They are against the welfare of Tamils, they are stubborn on the implementation of NEET in Tamil Nadu and all the resolutions that were passed in the state assembly are still pending, how can we participate in the event in such a scenario?" he asked. Selvaperunthagai said even in future, they would continue to boycott the state government events if PM Modi takes part in them. While he congratulated the efforts taken by the DMK government to organise the event in the state, the Sriperumbudur MLA held the Union government responsible for the unprecedented price rise, unemployment, lack of security, introduction of the Agnipath scheme, weakening the federalism, using agencies like Enforcement Directorate, CBI, Income Tax for political vendetta against opposition leaders. In view of PM Modi’s visit, the Greater Chennai Police have put in place a five-tier security arrangement and deployed 22,000 personnel. Also, the Tamil Nadu Government announced a holiday for schools, colleges, and other non-essential government offices in four districts for Thursday in view of the opening day of the Olympiad. The Chennai traffic police have announced diversions in parts of the city on Wednesday and Thursday.
