Chennai: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader M.K. Stalin was in the midst of a controversy on Thursday after a video showed him allegedly slapping a fellow passenger on board a metro train here.
“I did not slap him, I only gestured him to move away from a woman whose feet was being trampled by the passenger. My hand (inadvertently) touched his face while gesturing,” Stalin said.
Video footages of Stalin allegedly slapping a passenger in a metro train on Wednesday went viral with south-Indian state Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister Jayalalitha condemning the incident.
“This is strongly condemnable, such an uncivilised behaviour is unbecoming of an MLA,” the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo said in a statement.
She also charged that Stalin travelled in the train only for “vain publicity and to seek political mileage.”
“He slapped a passenger in the train and the same has been published by the media. This is condemnable and is unbecoming of a person who is a member of legislative assembly,” she said.
She said Stalin should realise that in public places, everybody has equal rights and nobody is inferior to another.
On Wednesday, Stalin and some DMK leaders and members took a metro train.
A man was standing close to Stalin in the coach. As he did not move back despite availability of sufficient space, Stalin gave a slight flick with the back of his hand.
Jaylalithaa also took exception to the DMK taking credit for the launch of the metro rail service here.
She said the feasibility for metro train service was started in 2003 when the AIADMK was in power.
Jayalalitha said the United Progressive Alliance government’s economic policies increased the capital outlay of the metro train project to around Rs200 billion (Dh11.56 billion) from the earlier estimate of Rs146 billion.
Jayalalitha on Thursday said it was her government which sowed the seeds for the Chennai Metro Rail and dismissed claims of arch rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) that it had initiated the project.
Referring to DMK’s allegations of delay in execution of the Metro Project, Jayalalitha said only three per cent of the work was completed during 2007-11 by the DMK regime.
“Between 2007 and 2011, during the DMK regime, only three per cent of work was done. In the past four years, 73 per cent of the work was completed in my government and service between Alandur and Koyambedu is launched,” she said in a statement here on Thursday.
The feasibility study for the Metro Project was done only in 2003 in the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime, she said.
“It is a pure lie to say that the plan was devised and executed expeditiously during the DMK regime,” she said.
Though DMK was an ally of the Congress, it could get the Centre’s nod for the project only in 2009, she added.
Also, it was only on February 15, 2011 during the fag end of the DMK tenure that an MoU was inked among the Centre, State and Chennai Metro Rail, she said.
While DMK spent only Rs11.43 billion for the project during its regime, Rs92.29 billion had been spent till date by the AIADMK government since it assumed power in 2011, the CM said.
“People will easily understand that it is the AIADMK regime which sowed the seeds for Metro Rail Project,” she said adding, DMK leaders M Karunanidhi and Stalin were “confusing” people to gain political mileage.
She also said that all corridors of the Metro network would be operational by the end of 2016.
Services between Airport and Little Mount and from Alandur to St Thomas Mount will be inaugurated by March next year, she said.
Similarly, services from Koyambedu to Nehru Park would be operational by June next year, she added.
