People did not vote for anyone from Jaya's household to be CM: Stalin
February 05, 2017  12:42
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People of Tamil Nadu did not vote for anyone from Jayalalithaa's "household" to be chief minister, says Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Working President M K Stalin, who appears to be keeping his options open on the possibility of another government in the tenure of the current assembly.
    
He also asserts that there are no "obstacles" to his leadership in the party and dismisses as "pointless" questions whether projecting him as the chief ministerial face would have won the DMK power in the last year's assembly polls.
    
The 63-year-old leader, who was made the Working President of the DMK last month, is worried about divisions in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after the death of Jayalalithaa and keen that it should not affect the functioning of the administration.
    
"One thing is certain that the government -- in its present form -- is clearly one that doesn't have the explicit legitimacy of having been elected by the people.
     
"The people voted for a government to be headed by Ms Jayalalithaa in May, 2016 and not for one to be run by Mr. O Panneerselvam or any other person from Ms Jayalalithaa's household," Stalin told PTI in an interview, the first since he took over as Working President.
     
His comments came on a day the chorus grew in the AIADMK for its General Secretary V K Sasikala to take over as chief minister of the state.
     
So, the Leader of the Opposition in the state said, the present government, which clearly does not enjoy the support of the majority people, which has a divided cabinet and the AIADMK MLAs speaking in different voices, is bound to fail.
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