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When Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa decided to discontinue the free dhoti-saree scheme, an annual feature during the Pongal festival, as part of her austerity measures, she never expected the move to embarrass her.
The scheme was started during the reign of M G Ramachandran and was continued by the succeeding Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, till the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government of Jayalalithaa decided to discontinue it due to the mounting fiscal deficit.
Following her decision, some handloom workers found themselves in dire straits owing to a drop in business.
Media reports of poor handloom workers going around begging for food in some parts of the state followed.
Sensing an opportunity, the opposition DMK sponsored kanchi-thotti (gruel distribution) scheme in some parts of the state gaining the workers' sympathy and at the same time painting the chief minister in poor light.
This philanthropic work got the nod of the DMK president M Karunanidhi who commended his cadres for their gesture.
He was to have participated in a gruel distribution effort at Ammayarkuppam. But the move was scuttled by the state government, which by then had wisened up and overnight ordered procurement of handloom stocks from the local cooperative filling the pockets of the handloom workers.
However, that did not stop similar events in other places getting coverage in the local media.
Rattled, the ruling AIADMK cadre also got into the act supplying eggs and biriyani to the starving handloom workers.
However, by then the DMK had made its point.
So, when the DMK cadres decided to distribute gruel in Madurai in the presence of former speaker P T R Palanivel Rajan and former Minister T Kirruttinan, police intervened to stall the proceedings.
The cops were unmoved even when the organisers explained that they had obtained prior police permission for the event.
Police forcibly evicted septuagenarian Kirruttinan when he squatted by the huge gruel vessel refusing to budge, DMK sources said.
To be doubly sure, AIADMK men ran amok disrupting the arrangements and later began distributing eggs and biriyani to the workers, they said.
In Chennai, DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan condemned the incident.
Some even believe that the DMK's astute move has rattled Jayalalithaa so much that the arrest of Tamil Nationalist Movement leader P Nedumaran under POTA for his pro-LTTE speeches was meant to deflect public attention from the DMK's gruel distribution scheme.
More reports on Tamil Nadu
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