Tamil Nadu
Annamalai versus Udhayanidhi Stalin
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Annamalai today (22 August) said that he would leave politics if Udhayanidhi Stalin resigned as an MLA and passed the UPSC Prelims exam or a TNPSC Group 4 exam without any form of fixing.
He was responding to Udhayanidhi's remarks at the hunger strike organised by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) against NEET on 20 August.
The hunger strike was organised in the wake of the suicides of NEET aspirant Jagadeeswaran and his father Selva Sekar and Governor RN Ravi's remarks stating that he would not give assent to the Bill to exempt the state from NEET if it were up to him.
Udhayanidhi had said, “Resign from your post. Stand elections in any constituency, go meet the people and tell them about your ideology, they will throw slippers at you. If you win, then I’ll listen to you and even support NEET."
Further, he asked if the President (before whom the state's NEET exemption Bill is pending) does not give her assent, will the DMK ask her to resign and contest elections?
He added that the DMK had tied itself in knots over the issue of NEET and now there was no way for the party to come out of it even though the data was showing improvement in the performance of students from the state over the past few years.