PM not working for people who voted for his party but for parties supporting him: Dayanidhi Maran

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not working for people who voted for his party but only for parties supporting him, DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran alleged on Wednesday while criticising Budget 2024-25 for failing to meet the aspirations of middle class people.

Participating in a discussion on the budget for 2024-25 in the Lok Sabha, the Chennai Central MP said nearly Rs 4 lakh crore had been promised as subsidy to Andhra Pradesh and Bihar to support Modi being prime minister. “I would like to ask, from where is the money going to come, at whose cost are you going to do this?”

“I think the time has come for the prime minister to take some good advice and follow our Chief Minister M K Stalin. When M K Stalin became the CM of Tamil Nadu, he said, ‘I will work not only for the people who voted for me but also for the people who did not vote for me, it is my duty’. Today, our PM is not working for the people who voted for his party but only for the parties which are supporting him,” Maran alleged.

“The Union budget has again failed to meet the aspiration of middle class people,” he added.

According to Maran, the Central government is penalising the people of Tamil Nadu for not voting for the BJP.

“Demands from our chief minister are for our people, but why are you penalising us..because we didn’t elect you? We didn’t elect you because you are two faced. You always want to use us, abuse us. You want to split us in the name of religion and caste…,” Maran claimed.

“Till now how many times has the PM said he likes Tamil language? But what has he done for the people of Tamil Nadu?” he went on to say.

The DMK MP said people of Tamil Nadu have another fear — that the Constitution may be destroyed.

Maran’s attack came amid opposition allegations that the budget had announcements only for states ruled by BJP’s allies.

In his debut speech in the Lok Sabha, TDP MP Sribharat Mathukumili hailed the budget as “visionary”.

“After NDA government came to power in 2014 and our leader Chandrababu Naidu was chief minister, we systematically worked on developing the economy, we competed with Telangana in the development of our per capita income…on multiple metrics we were doing well,” he said.

The Vishakhapatnam MP said that in 2019 his party lost the elections and the damage done to the state during past five years has pushed it back by 15-20 years on the development track.

“For a state that has historically received 40-45 paisa for every rupee it gives to Centre, we are in a very unique position today where we need to depend on the Centre to be able to run our state and that is the reason we went for elections together (with allies)–for the good of the state,” he added.