Tender public apology or face legal action, DMK tells TN BJP chief over remarks against Stalin

The Dravidian major threatened to sue Annamalai if he failed to comply with the legal notice served on him by DMK’s organising secretary R S Bharathi through the senior advocate P Wilson.

The notice, a copy of which was made available to the media here, asked the BJP state president to “cease and desist from making defamatory statements against the DMK president and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.”

In the notice, Bharathi claimed the former IPS officer, who heads the BJP unit, had made “several vile, scandalous, malicious and false allegations” against the Chief Minister regarding his current trip to the United Arab Emirates to attend the Dubai Expo 2022 to attract foreign investment into the state.

Annamalai has been making constant attempts to defame, scandalise and tarnish the reputation of the DMK president, and other leaders and members of the party, as the BJP was unable to make a mark in the elections, Bharathi claimed.

The Chief Minister, Bharathi said, had embarked on a trip to Dubai in his official capacity to lure foreign investment to Tamil Nadu so as to generate employment and boost the state economy.

Without being aware about this, Annamalai while leading the party’s agitations in Virudhunagar and Chennai on March 24 and 25, respectively, made vile statements without basic general knowledge on local and global events, he said.

“You have cast malicious aspersions against Mr M K Stalin about his official trip to Dubai to attend ‘Dubai Expo 2022′ without having even an iota of information or knowledge. You have made per se false, baseless and defamatory allegations that all foreign investments will only be for the benefit of the Chief Minister and his family,” the organising secretary said in the notice.

Annamalai resorted to making utterly false statements as he could not digest the Chief Minister’s growing popularity. This “cheap publicity stunt” was meant to gain political mileage at the expense of the reputation and image of the DMK president and Chief Minister, Bharathi stated.

“Besides being defamatory, the remarks are anti-national and liable to be dealt with as seditious, since you are attempting to sabotage foreign investments into India,” he said.

Damages to the tune of Rs 100 crore should be paid to the Tamil Nadu’ Chief Minister’s public relief fund within two days from the date of receiving this legal notice “failing which our client will be constrained to initiate appropriate civil and criminal proceedings holding you liable for all costs and consequences arising therefrom,” Wilson stated in the notice.

Meanwhile, Annamalai said he would face all of DMK’s threats in court, as he had full faith in the judiciary.

“I was given to understand that the DMK has issued a defamation notice for Rs 100 crore on me. DMK’s first family treats a mere commoner like me to be equivalent to a ‘Dubai family like them’,” he said taking to microblogging site Twitter.

“I have full faith in our judiciary. Will face all your threats in court. My fight is for TN,” he tweeted.

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