Chennai: DMK president MK Stalin, who led a massive anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rally attended by thousands of people belonging to his party and those of his allies in Chennai on Monday, vowed that the ongoing protests against the Narendra Modi government would not end till the central legislation was repealed.
Veteran Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram, state leaders of the two Left parties Dravidar Kazhagam and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, and other fraternal parties joined Stalin in leading the rally for which the police had denied permission.
The procession route, from the Thalamuthu Natarajan Maligai to the Rajarathinam Stadium, saw milling crowds including the young and old, women and men, inching their way towards the venue raising slogans against the CAA and proposed National Citizens Register (NRC).
Nearly 10,000 police personnel were deployed along the procession route after a late night bid to stall the rally failed on Sunday.
Two persons, claiming to be public-spirited individuals, had moved the Madras High Court bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and PT Asha on Sunday evening seeking to stall the rally alleging that it could lead to violence.
Hearing their plea, the court directed the police to deploy drone cameras along the rally route to fix accountability on the leaders if anything went wrong.
The Government Pleader V Jayaprakash Narayan had then informed the court that the police had denied permission for the opposition rally as the DMK “was evasive” on who would take responsibility in case of violence.
The judges observed that a peaceful protest could not be prevented in a democratic set up but since the DMK was “evasive” in its response to “pertinent” questions posed by the police, the court directed the police to deploy drone cameras along the rally route to fix accountability on the leaders if anything went wrong. They, however, took on record that no permission was granted for the rally.
