On Sunday, after UPA President Sonia Gandhi unveiled the statue of M Karunanidhi in Chennai, Karunanidhi's son, Stalin proposed Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi's name for the prime minister's post. Present at the event were Rahul Gandhi, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu and his Kerala and Puducherry counterparts — Pinarayi Vijayan and V Narayanasamy — and leaders of DMK and several other parties.
Leaders in opposition were wary over the announcement and there were murmurs of reservation over the announcement. And so, just a day after the country began debating, DMK President MK Stalin in a statement has spelt out the reasons as to why he proposed the name of Rahul Gandhi for the post of prime minister. In a statement thanking everyone for taking part in unveiling the Karunanidhi statue, Stalin strongly defended his proposal.
On Tuesday, he said Rahul Gandhi had the strength to defeat the Modi government and appealed to the opposition parties to rally behind him. “I nominated Rahul Gandhi for the post of prime minister since I felt that would be the right way to unite secular forces. It is necessary to strengthen the hands of Rahul Gandhi if we must release the country from the clutches of communal forces. And my proposal was to provide a stable leadership to the forces that are out to defeat the fascist government,” Stalin said.
Explaining further, he said Gandhi as Congress president defeated BJP fort in the Hindi heartland of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. He said the DMK wants to overthrow the Modi government and install the young Nehru-Gandhi scion as Prime Minister. “As the son of Karunanidhi, I propose that we will install a new prime minister in Delhi. I propose the candidature of Rahul Gandhi from Tamil Nadu. Rahul Gandhi has the ability to defeat the fascist and Nazi Modi government,” Stalin said on Sunday. Previously, Karunanidhi had proposed names of Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi for position of top leader.
Stalin said, "In the five years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rule, the country has gone 15 years back. If we give another chance to him, surely the country will go 50 years back. PM Modi is behaving like a king, that's why we've all come together to safeguard democracy and country."
Referring to the debates and discussions among other alliance parties on Rahul for PM, he said, “There may be discussions among opposition parties on this issue. Discussion and dialogue is the only way forward in a democracy and maybe this dialogue might result in good things.”