Key Points

After touring Coonoor and Ooty, Palaniswami addressed a gathering in Gudalur on Wednesday, highlighting the challenges faced by residents of the hilly constituencies in accessing modern healthcare.

He said that people in the Nilgiris were often forced to travel to Coimbatore or Mettupalayam for advanced medical treatment and surgeries.

Palaniswami stressed that during the AIADMK’s tenure, the party had made “serious efforts” to establish a government medical college and hospital to meet the needs of the local population.

While construction work for such institutions had progressed substantially, he alleged that the current government had failed to ensure adequate staffing. “Hospitals have been built, but doctors and nurses are still in short supply,” he remarked.

Turning his criticism on the DMK, Palaniswami asked what the ruling party had achieved for Gudalur in the past four years. “Not a single major project has been brought to this constituency. It was the AIADMK that established a government science college here and initiated work for a medical college and hospital in the Nilgiris,” he said.

He added that nearly 50 per cent of the work on the medical college hospital was completed during his party’s rule.

He further charged that the DMK had merely pasted stickers and claimed credit for AIADMK’s initiatives.

“The DMK came to power and opened these projects with stickers on them. They have been inaugurating schemes started during AIADMK’s governance, presenting them as their own,” Palaniswami alleged.

Confident about his party’s electoral prospects, Palaniswami declared that the AIADMK remained the leading force in Tamil Nadu politics. “The AIADMK is firmly in the first place. The real contest now is for who comes second,” he said, signalling his party’s readiness for the upcoming elections.

- IANS