AIADMK walkout to highlight DMK’s failure to get NEET cancelled, says Palaniswami

Palaniswami termed the White Paper presented by Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan as an attempt of the DMK government for “self-publicity”.

Explaining the reasons for the AIADMK’s walk out from the Assembly during the presentation of the State budget, Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Friday that this was to lodge his party ‘s protest against the DMK regime’s failure to get the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) cancelled and the latter’s stand on a host of other issues. Addressing presspersons outside the Kalaivanar Arangam, the present venue of the Assembly sittings, Mr Palaniswami, flanked by the AIADMK’s coordinator and former Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam and other leaders, accused Chief Minister M.K. Stalin for not having honoured the electoral promise of the cancellation of the NEET for students of Tamil Nadu after raising the issue in a sustained manner for the last three years. He termed the White Paper presented by Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan as an attempt of the DMK government for “self-publicity”. As for the provision of welfare measures, the DMK regime of 2006-11 had adopted rice-drawing ration cards as the basis to identify beneficiaries for the distribution of colour television sets. This was what the AIADMK governments had followed during 2011-21.