Thiruma meets Stalin, says no problem in alliance

Chennai: A couple of days after his remarks on power sharing caused quite a stir in political circles, VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan on Monday met chief minister M K Stalin at DMK headquarters Anna Arivalayam and urged him to introduce alcohol prohibition in a phased manner. Later, Thirumavalavan told reporters that the issue of power sharing was not discussed during the meeting.
Asked about criticism of BJP regarding the DMK-led alliance getting weak because of his ‘power-sharing' comments, Thirumavalavan said there were no problems between DMK and VCK.
Thirumavalavan's recent move to invite AIADMK to VCK's prohibition conference on Oct 2, and his talks on power sharing caused a churn. Thirumavalavan, however, said he would continue to speak about the issue of power sharing.
"It (power sharing) has been our ideology since 1999. It has been debated in a much bigger way on social media. We have been speaking about it and will continue to speak about it. We will speak about our ideology or about our stand at a time when it should be spoken strongly," Thirumavalavan said.
Speaking about prohibition, Thirumavalavan said the objective of their conference was to demand TN govt reduce the target set for sales in TASMAC shops and to demand all state govts implement prohibition.
During the meeting with Stalin, Thirumavalavan submitted a memorandum to him and asked him to place the prohibition demand before Union govt.
"After reading the memorandum, Stalin said DMK too has the same policy and will depute DMK organisational secretary R S Bharathi and DMK spokesman T K S Elangovan to attend the prohibition conference," Thirumavalavan said.
"Chief minister had assured us he would pressure the Union govt to introduce prohibition. He (Stalin), however, told us that due to administrative bottlenecks, the liquor ban will be implemented in a phased manner," Thirumavalavan said. Asked whether VCK would personally invite AIADMK as well for the conference, Thirumavalavan said they had not invited DMK either but went to inform the CM about their stand on liquor prohibition.