Chennai: Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Manickam Tagore on Wednesday defended Kallakurichi MLA C Arul Vignesh, who has faced flak for allegedly sending an inappropriate WhatsApp message to a woman district collector. Ironically, Tagore’s remarks in support of Vignesh came a day after his own party MPs S Jothimani and R Sudha condemned the TVK MLA over the incident. They demanded that chief minister C Joseph Vijay take immediate action against the MLA. Calling media reports on the incident involving Arul Vignesh a “media trial,” Tagore said the MLA was “paavam” (innocent) and noted that the latter had denied the charges.Tagore said DMK has no moral right to criticise anyone for alleged obscene remarks as the party’s leader Udhayanidhi Stalin had made disgraceful and arrogant remarks publicly at Thanjavur two months back.“Is there any evidence that the Kallakurichi MLA spoke in such a manner? So, don’t compare what happened (Udhayanidhi’s speech) with what did not happen,” he said when asked why Congress had criticised Udhayanidhi’s controversial remark but remained silent over the controversy surrounding the Kallakurichi MLA.
