Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has scathingly attacked the BJP regime and reiterated his strong support to Tamil Nadu Minister Senthil Balaji, who was arrested and sent to judicial custody, in the money laundering case that is being probed by the Union government led- Enforcement Directorate (ED). Senthil Balaji has currently been hospitalized in Chennai due to chest pain and the DMK has alleged that the ED had harassed and tortured him.

In a video message that he released on Thursday - June 15, MK Stalin issued a warning to the BJP regime by stating that the DMK won't get intimidated by such raids from the central agencies. He said that Senthil Balaji was locked up for 18 hours, he was mentally harassed and his life was endangered for the case dating back to ten years. The video runs for ten minutes during which MK Stalin recalled how the BJP regime has misused the central agencies to suppress the opposition leaders. 

By quoting the events that happened for the BJP's opposition parties in West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, and Karnataka, MK Stalin said that ED's arrest of Senthil Balaji was a political vendetta. He came down heavily on ADMK and its leader Edappadi Palaniswami, calling him a slave of the BJP. MK Stalin further said that BJP used the central agencies like CBI and ED to keep ADMK under its control. 

MK Stalin vowed that such kind of intimidations won't bear fruit for BJP when it comes to DMK. He said that BJP cannot intimidate the DMK or its leaders through raids and that they will be countered in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. As the arrest of Senthil Balaji has come days ahead of the meeting of the opposition leaders in Bihar, MK Stalin asked, 'Is there an undeclared emergency in the country?' 

Questioning the way Senthil Balaji was treated by the ED, MK Stalin said, "What is the need to question him in this way? Is there an undeclared emergency in the country? We are not opposed to an inquiry against Senthil Balaji on court orders. He is an elected representative, a five-time MLA and Minister for the second time. Why he should be treated like a terrorist? 

MK Stalin has stressed the DMK's accusations that the BJP is using the ED for political purposes and to silence the opposition leaders. "BJP is not ready to meet people and compete politically. They can't able to face us ideologically, politically, and in the elections, due to which the party is intimidating us by using CBI, IT department, and ED", MK Stalin added and stated that such intimidation is against the democracy.

MK Stalin further said, "We have ideologies. We are against casteism and sanatanam. We would oppose anti-people ideologies through elections." The Chief Minister has also highlighted the sharp surge in the ED raids after BJP came to power. He said that the ED had conducted only 112 raids in ten years before BJP came to power, but after BJP came to power, 3,000 raids were conducted against those who opposed the BJP. Of those cases, only 0.05 per cent are proven." 

MK Stalin said that most of the raids were carried out to threaten the dissenters. He also listed out the leaders who opposed the BJP regime and faced raids and arrests from the central agencies. He quoted the arrest of Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia in Delhi, the arrest of former Union Minister P Chidambaram by ED, the cases against the current Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav. 

MK Stalin has also highlighted that there were no raids conducted by CBI or ED in the BJP-ruling states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. Releasing the video on Twitter, MK Stalin wrote, "Don't dare to touch DMK people. We also know politics. It is not a threat, it is a warning." 

தி.மு.க.காரர்களைச் சீண்டிப் பார்க்க வேண்டாம். எங்களுக்கும் எல்லா அரசியலும் தெரியும். இது மிரட்டல் அல்ல; எச்சரிக்கை! pic.twitter.com/MTA0suBkSh

— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) June 15, 2023