Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party secretary SG Suryah was arrested by the Tamil Nadu police late on Friday from Chennai, an action that saw the saffron party lashing out at the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the state, linking it with the Enforcement Directorate arrest of TN minister V Senthil Balaji.
Suryah was arrested by the Madurai police in Chennai late on Friday under sections of the IPC and the IT Act.
Police sources said the action was based on a CPI-M complaint against a social media post by the BJP state secretary. He was remanded to custody later.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar compared TN CM Stalin to his namesake and Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, while BJP national spokesperson Tom Vaddakan called Surya's arrest a "vendetta."
"The chief minister has said in a statement after the arrest of Balaji that he will take revenge," he said in an apparent reference to Stalin's strong reaction post the arrest of Balaji.
The ED on Wednesday arrested Balaji under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in an alleged cash-for-jobs scam in the state transport department when he was the transport minister in the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government during 2011-15. He later joined the Stalin-led DMK.
Addressing reporters in Delhi, Vaddakan said the action has been taken against Suryah for his tweet about the death of a sanitation worker in Tamil Nadu, while Balaji was arrested "for his involvement in cash-for-jobs scam".
On the minister's arrest, the BJP spokesperson said, "This is not the case that we brought about. It was a case in which Chief Minister Stalin himself wanted Balaji to be arrested for corruption when he was in the opposition."
With Suryah's arrest, a message has been sent out that "if you raise any issue, then Stalin will strike," he charged.
Vaddakan alleged the Tamil Nadu Police has arrested Suryah for his tweet in a retaliatory action because Stalin is "worried that Senthil will expose him".
Union Minister Chandrasekhar charged Stalin with acting like the original Stalin for whom he said the freedom of people and their rights didn't matter.
"Yesterday, our senior worker from TN (Suryah) was arrested, just simply because he tweeted about the death of a sanitation worker in the constituency where there is a CPI-M elected person," Chandrasekhar told PTI in Margao town of South Goa.
He said that it is a sign of "irony and hypocrisy" that the Congress used Section 66A of the IT Act during United Progressive Alliance(UPA) regime to put people in jail over their tweets. Now, their “alliance partners, including NCP and Stalin,” are doing it, he said.
Under Act, which was scrapped by the Supreme Court in 2015, a person posting offensive messages could be imprisoned for up to three years and also fined.
Chandrasekhar said that the Tamil Nadu CM, who heads the ruling DMK, is desperate to prove that his name is very much like the original Stalin – former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin – for whom the freedom of people and their rights didn't matter and he used to put them in jail.
He said that it is important for the people of India to realise that "this is the same party whose leader Rahul Gandhi goes around the world and speaks about the democracy being in danger whereas his own party did that for ten years and his own ally is doing it today".
"Maybe when former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was talking about being intimidated or being sent to jail, all those things I thought were lies. Maybe he was referring to Rahul Gandhi and his dynastic ally DMK," he said.
The minister said that their party and the Union government will support Suryah and he will overcome these attempts by the Congress and its allies to muzzle free speech.
BJP TN chief K Annamalai slammed Suryah's arrest.
"His only mistake was to expose the nasty double standards of the Communists, allies of DMK. Using state machinery to curtail free speech & getting jittery for the slightest criticism is unbecoming of a democratically elected leader and, indeed, are signs of an autocratic leader in the making," Annamalai tweeted.
"These arrests will not deter us & we will continue to be bearers of the uncomfortable truth!" he added.
