Two scions of the most important political families in Tamil Nadu – AICC vice president and Gandhi family heir Rahul Gandhi and DMK family political heir MK Stalin – combined their forces to launch an all out attack against AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa, asking the people to throw out a person that the state can ill afford.

On his first election campaign tour to Madurai, Coimbatore and Chennai, Rahul Gandhi shared the stage with Stalin at Madurai, where he focused his attack on Jayalalithaa, her persona and style of functioning, finding fault with everything she did and did not do, and asked the people if they wanted a person as chief minister who did not like meeting people at all.

During floods, I could come all the way from Delhi to meet the affected people and help them, Jayalalitaa could not even come out of the four walls of her home, Gandhi said to cheers from the audience even as Stalin looked on.

The DMK Congress combine will bring a corruption free government and take Tamil Nadu to its rightful place, Gandhi said and praised the leadership qualities of Stalin and presented them as contrast to the incumbent chief minister, who behaves as the only person in Tamil Nadu who knows everything.

“Do you want such a person and her government,” Gandhi questioned to a good response from the crowd after his rendition was translated into Tamil by a senior Congress leader. Present on the dias were former union finance minister P Chidambaram, TNCC president EVKS Elangovan and senior DMK leaders.

Tamil Nadu used to be an attractive investment destination and today no industrialist or investor is willing to come to Tamil Nadu and several are heading outside, Rahul Gandhi said adding investors were getting scared of investing in Tamil Nadu. As a result many companies have gone out of Tamil Nadu and this has led to mounting unemployment.

“This is not a government and a state that was envisaged by the great leaders like Kamaraj, MGR and Karunanidhi,” Rahul Gandhi said.

Prohibition is something the Congress and DMK were committed to bring in, he said and used a little girl Satya of Teni district and her tragic tale of loss of her parents to highlight the ills of liquor. She has lost her parents to liquor, he said adding in Tamil Nadu only Tasmac shops had grown from 1800 to 6800 in just five years. In rest all, Tamil Nadu has slipped very badly, Gandhi said.

Stalin set the tone for the frontal attack on Jayalalithaa and her government. He held the AIADMK government solely responsible for the flight of industries from Tamil Nadu and said whatever industries came to Tamil Nadu were due to the UPA regime at the Centre and DMK government headed by Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu.