Stalin, Vijayan hit back at Modi as southern poll battle heats up

CMs vs PM

- HT Correspondents

Tamil Nadu chief minister ‘MK Stalin and his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday evening, hours after the PM launched a scathing attack on both state governments.

Stalin asserted that the BJP’s “double-engine” model would find no traction in TN, while Vijayan alleged that the party has left “the secular fabric of our nation under sustained attack”.

“The double engine that the PM talks about will not run in Tamil Nadu... Tamil Nadu has achieved historical growth by ‘overcoming all the obstacles created by the BJP government at the Centre,” Stalin said in a post on X, taking strong exception to the comments by the PM at a political rally of the NDA in Chennai’s Maduranthakam.

The CM's remarks came hours after the PM launched the poll campaign for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ahead of the TN assembly elections, where he said “we have to free TN from the clutches of the DMK” and batted for a “double engine” government in the state that walks “shoulder to shoulder” with the Centre for Tamil Nadu’s growth and progress.

Hitting back, Stalin asked Modi to ponder how states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka, and West Bengal, where the “double engine” has not entered, were registering growth.